As the Red Sun Rises
by D. Reagan Fly
Summary: Seven years after the events of Episode Seven we find the characters of the Star Wars universe much changed. Death. Tradgedy. heartbreak. Love and loss. This will hurt. I warned you. Life sucks then you die. Rey and Kylo have secrets...big secrects...um...I warned you. But it's worth it. The pain is worth it. :) (Rated M for violence)
1. Of Flower and Sun

**Hello everyone, this is my story! Important notices:**

 **1\. I understand those of you who are not Reylo supporters, I was one of you! I actually wrote this as a practice for character development in on of my novels and chose these two characters because I DIDN'T ship them. But...well...after being inside of their heads for a while...I converted. Yes, I converted myself, don't know how that works, it just happened! XD**

 **2\. For those of you hard-core Reylo shippers, congratulations, you've found yourself a new one! However, as much as i love Reylo, they are not the only romance in this story, but their love is pretty constant. (I'm considering writing the Prequel explaining how this love came to be...but I haven't decided yet.**

 **3\. Last thing: If Rey and Kylo are revealed as RELATIVES in Cannon, THIS IS AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE! Not into that stuff ;)**

 **I hope you enjoy a good tugging of the heart strings every once and a while! May the force be with you! Enjoy!**

 **-D.**

The sand swirls in the harsh wind as it is picked up and thrown by the desert man's boots as he begins the final stretch of his eight mile trek home. The last sun is finally setting and it's scorching rays finger his tall form with an almost violent love.

His wraps are pale greens and blues, faded by the zealous gaze of the sun and darkened in sweat that he wears as a second skin. His back is straight and proud despite the heavy burden he wears strapped to his back, and the staff is his iron grip is more of a weapon than a crutch. He leaves a deep trail behind him of heavy, powerful footsteps speaking to the giant he might have been in history...but his eyes are that of a warrior long past his days of war.

From where his dark gaze can be seen over the wraps across his mouth and nose, one might be able to identify a sandstorm of emotion; anger, love, hate, power, passion, and an overpowering potent mix of peace and exhaustion. Here the desert was man hiding from his fate, and here in the desert, he was at peace in the boiling heat of four suns and the grating sand a constant clinging to his frame.

His trail is quickly wiped clean by the wailing winds and the desert man is caught up in the sands and winds as though he belongs to them and them to he. He leaves no trace or trail to be tracked by man or beast. He is a creature of the sand and heat, a creature of brilliant love and passion, but agony and suffering as well.

Like the sun, an observer might find him difficult to look at, painful even, the torment paired with love in his eye is too much for many to bear...but like the sun also the observer might find difficulty in looking away, for the rapturous experience of watching the powerful brilliance of his soul so manifested in that burning gaze.

But up ahead, coming to be joined with him in his trail is an answer. A desert flower, delicate and colorful standing in strength and dignity despite her desolate homeland. Looking upon her thin and graceful form wrapped in aged white cloths one might question whether the flower lived for the rays of the sun...or in fact the sun lived to touch the delicate petals of the flower and illuminate her precious face.

As the desert man joins to her and they walk across the plain sided by side, it would be difficult to deny the fact that the sun lives for the flower and not the other way around. They travel as such in silence, both faces wrapped up tight and carry their burdens with mighty strength possessed by warriors of the same breed.

Their exhausted pants dance in harmony, breaths wet and hot against their face. Her shoulder nearly brushes his elbow with every step they take, and one could scarce deny the fact that words or not they communicated to one another by their souls. The strength and comfort in the solace they found in each other's company speak in volumes promising they belong to one another in every way.

They travel like that for another mile as the final sun sets in violent red sending crimson stains across the sand in beautifully morbid streams and now the last dying rays illuminate a path of two pairs of booted feet that are quickly to be swept away.

Finally their journey has met it's end and they stand before the threshold of a ship that for the past seven years has been called their home. A broken twisted piece of crumpled metal with suns and flowers painted in brilliant hues by child's hand across the hull.

And here he comes, the artist, a child made by the flesh of flower and sun, running from the open door to throw himself in his mother's arms, to tear the face mask over her shoulder—revealing the heroine of his world and the galaxy-and plant wet kisses across her sun browned face. Then he spreads wide his arms and leaps into the sky knowing full well his father will catch him and performs his unabashed love across his father's face as well, tearing the mask free from the desert man's face to reveal the face of one of the most feared men in all the galaxies, the harsh face of a predator split wide in a grin as he accepts his son's love and admiration.

As the sun wraps a heavy arm about the waist of the flower, and draws her close to him as he hold his small son at his hip, they approach the entrance of their home unknowing that when the last sun that sets this evening rises tomorrow they will cease being a desert man and his wife.

There will be no more sun or flower and no more father and mother. Tomorrow as the red sun rises, they will be thrown viciously back into the names and roles not owned or touched by them in seven years. Tomorrow the flower will be once again alone, the last of her kind.

A single Jedi named Rey.

And tomorrow her husband the sun will be torn from her strong grasp and trapped behind a dark mask to be hated and feared in his agony and solitude.

A knight of Ren named Kylo.

But tomorrow has not come and so the desert man holds his precious son tight and eats with his wife and child. Tonight the flower will sleep wrapped up in her husband's warm embrace and have beautiful dreams about what her son is going to be when he grows into a man. Tonight is all they have, and tomorrow is all they will lose.


	2. Home

Rey wakes before her husband. She always does. As soon as the first thin tendrils of the first sun graze the planet her eyes flicker open. The clock set in her is trained from years of experience and disappointments, those who rise late, eat late...if at all. Her husband's heavy arm is wrapped around her waist and he's pulled her in tight to him, trapping her against his warmth and strength. She lies still for a few moments, enjoying the feeling of waking up, and traces the veins that run across the back of his hand, comforted by the feel of his body pressed to hers and the deep warm breaths caressing the nape of her neck. Her eyes wander over to the sleeping form of their son who lies curled up like his mother and sleeps and on his side like his father. His head of thick dark curls is knotted and messy, sprawling out in dark twists across his pillow. He sleeps with a pout on his face like his father and has the blanket clutched in a tiny fist that he rests his chin upon. He's thin and long and healthy and Rey loves every inch of him with as much force as possesses the universe.

It's quickly growing warmer as the First sun finally breaks the horizon and she begins to untangle herself from her husband's frame, quietly and gently peeling herself away, breaking into a fresh sweat at the warmth his body is giving off exaggerating the heat already beginning as the first sun begins to cook the sand and ship around them. He frowns and mumbles something in his sleep shifting ever so slightly, allowing her room to slip out of his grasp. She smiles down at him and pushes an inky black curl behind his ear. He was up late last night, she could feel his exhaustion radiating from him and saturating her bones though their bond even in sleep. He always stays up later than she, usually by several hours, sometimes working on their map or tinkering with one of the parts they salvaged, sometimes just lying beside her, holding her close and waiting for her to fall asleep in his arms. Then he lies there, she's sure, and keeps vigilant watch until the latest hours of the night and sometimes early into the morning before drifting off to join her in sleep. This is the routine they've fallen into over the past seven years. After their son has been put to bed they are awake and active for a few hours before she falls asleep. He always stays up late and she always rises early.

 _It's hard to imagine it's been seven years already._ She notes as she bends down to kiss away the frown on her husband's brow. It doesn't work. A pang lances through her heart as it always does when she remembers the fact that she can't kiss away all his pain and sorrow, and she must remind herself that she loves this man and his strength and passion and smiles... but also his deepest darkest fears and pains that she's only ever seen in the farthest reaches of his mind; as he can not, and might never, be able to voice them for the suffering they bring along with them. Again she kisses him softly, once on the sharp cheek bone and then leaving a soft trail down his cheek to his mouth. She feels the corner of his lips twitch beneath her own and sits back up with a delighted and triumphant smile as his frown melts ever so slightly. Perhaps not all of them can she heal, but some of them she can.

Then she slips from the bed into the warm morning, donning her wraps and goggles. She slips her bag over her shoulder and snatches her staff just before she leaves the ship, glancing back just once to smile again at the sleeping forms of her husband and son. Her small and precious family. Her only family. The smile remains on her face as she ties her mask around it and steps out into the blistering heat of the earliest hour of the day and begins her trek into the desert to scavenge what she can.

When she returns her bag is nearly half full already and she's grinning ear to ear with the bounty she discovered. She found a fourteen year old model of a transponder that might still be salvageable and can't wait to see what her husband will say. Her son is playing in the sand when she returns to the ship. It's a crashed old empirical Lambda class shuttle, one wing snapped down the middle and buried deep beneath the sand's surface, one lying flat along the planet's face and another jutting straight up in the air like a tusk, burnt and bent from the force of the crash and the constant beating of the wind. Her son looks up at her with a bright smile and thrusts a little tin humanoid figurine into her hands,

"Look mama!" He grinned, "Daddy fixed him!"

"Did he?" She laughed through her mask, "Well your father's always full of surprises, isn't he." She ruffled his hair and then frowned at him, "I thought I told you to pull your hair out of your face."

He stuck his bottom lip out in a pout, "I don't like it up."

She raised her eyebrows over the face covering so high they hit her goggles.

He gave a heavy sigh and submitted, "Yes, mama." He frustratedly began pulling his thick dark curls out of his face but kept getting his pudgy fingers stuck in the knots. "It's not working!" He huffed after a few moments of struggling.

"Would you like help?" Rey asked eyebrows still raised reproachfully.

"Yes." He mumbled.

She grinned, though all that was visible was the delighted squinting of her eyes over the mask. "Come here."

After a few moments of loud protests and whines she finally had his dark mess of hair pulled back out of his face and in a secure knot on the back of his head, she'd braided it to his scalp on either side to keep it secure longer, maybe this one would last more than a few hours.

"Thanks." He grumbled. She chuckled and pressed a firm kiss to his forehead through her face mask, and suddenly he grinned again. "I'm going to find some more parts for Sue." He informed her.

"Sue?" She frowned quizzically.

"Yup, Sur," he held up his tin man, "Needs a wife. He can't be happy without a wife."

She blinked in surprise, "Where did you hear that?"

"I dunno." He smiled at her curiously, confused by her question. "I guess just cuz Daddy can't be happy without you."

She smiled at him again and nodded, "Well then I suppose you'd better find the parts to make Sur a wife then."

He dashed off on his mission and she watched him go, love and pride bursting her heart open. She didn't know it was possible to love someone so very much. Then she hauled her pack up again and strode up the ramp to enter her home.

Her husband was digging through a pile of dirty laundry, frustration emanating from him in thick, tired waves. His own dark hair was pulled into a curly knot on the back of his head although a few dark curls had already torn free to frame his harshly defined morning scowl. He wore his dark pants and had his belt tied loosely about his hips but wore no shoes or shirt.

"Are we going for the savage look?" She teased, taking off her outer wraps, goggles and scarf, dropping her bounty in the entrance and appraising his bare torso. "Because I could get used to this." She smirked.

He turned to face her and gave her a half-hearted glare, "Can't find my shirt." He sighed running his hands over his head to grab the knot of hair at the back, gripping it harshly and remaining like that; standing in the middle of the room shirtless, arms resting atop his head pulling his muscles taut in a way she very much appreciated, knotting and twisting them in fluid and firm definition. She let that appreciation hum across their bond and slunk up under him like a sly desert cat, a grin playing across her face. She placed a hand on his chest, admiring how powerful he was and tracing the scars that crisscrossed his sternum and rib cage mischievously.

"Do you need a shirt?" She glanced up at him suggestively. He gave another tired sigh and instead of encouraging her advances he folded heavy arms about her and caged her against him, resting his chin atop her head. She was surprised by his preference to comfort over her earlier suggestion but complied willingly, wrapping her own strong arms about his middle and pressing her cheek against his bare chest to feel his heart thundering within his powerful frame. She frowned and ran her fingers up and down his spine gently.

"What's the matter Ky?" She asked with a gentle frown of her own.

He sighed again and didn't answer her, but she could feel uncertainty and nervous anxiety thrumming through the bond and pushed herself away, genuinely concerned.

"Kylo," She stared up at him suspiciously, "What's the matter."

"I don't know." He groaned pulling back from her too. "I just...I just have a feeling." He let out a shuddering, ragged breath. "I just... I know something's going to happen...I know I'm going to...to lose you...to lose... you both." His voice broke and he pressed his lips together trying to reign in his overwhelming emotions. Her heart burned with his, their fear and love roaring like fire between them. She couldn't comfort him. Couldn't tell him it was just his imagination, that his fear had no rationale... but she wanted to. She wanted to kiss him and fold into him and tell him that they were safe, they had been for the past seven years...they would never be found...she wanted to tell him that he'd never lose her, never lose her son...never be alone, tormented, in agony...in the dark. But she couldn't.

He was always more prone to foresight in the force than she, and he was right, there was a possibility that he would lose them. Perhaps he had sensed something stirring in the force. It wouldn't be the first time. There was a possibility that the Resistance would find them and kill him, or take her...the First Order might discover them and the Supreme leader might snare their whole family...or crush them all instantaneously...or somehow make Kylo kill her...or their precious son. She couldn't promise anything, she knew that...and he knew that... and their fear and pain and uncertainty that they were tormented by for seven years now was thrumming between them violently now, stormy waves crashing upon each other, dragging each other down to the depths of the darkest seas, drowning in each others own terror. Hot tears sprouted in her hazel eyes as she looked up at her husband and drank in his panic and fear, unable to do anything to ebb the flow. Finally she settled for just pulling him back to her again and pressing her ear to his chest, loving the comforting sound of his heart drumming passionately behind his ribs.

She loved this man so very much it was painful. The strings connecting them were strong and fierce and tore at her organs and flesh like snares. This was her husband. The only man she'd ever loved in her entire life. The father of her child and lover of her soul. He was poetic and dramatic and regularly grumpy. His scowls were familiar and comforting and when he smiled she flew above the atmosphere in rapturous joy. She trusted him with her life, her body, her well-being, her son...she trusted him with everything that was most precious to her because she knew it was most precious to him as well. He'd worked beside her, and sweat beside her, bled, cried and nearly died beside her. He was her other half and she treasured his mind and his character, dark and savage at times and yet almost noble at others...he was always strong and emotional and passionate about everything he spoke or thought of and she craved his affection and admiration that he gave to her so freely. She wanted so terribly bad to tell him it was merely a dream, he needn't worry at all...but instead she could only hold him as he clutched her, the only anchor to his sea of emotions, and clamped her eyes shut as she felt his cool tears hit her scalp.

"You still have us." It was the only promise she could give him. "We're still here. We're here right now."

His breaths came in shudders that tore her heart in two and her body shook with the onslaught of the storm in his soul that poured over their bond. She held him until the storm stopped...or least was held back at bay. When she finally pulled away and looked up into his face he was more recognizable as himself and she thumbed away the remaining tears that were drying on his cheeks.

"Thankyou." He whispered, dark gaze burning into her. She used to fear the way his gaze tore into her and opened her up for him to unravel. But now she found it comfortable, familiar, warming...she had nothing to hide from him and he hid nothing from her. There was no shame in his tears and no shame in the way she couldn't stop shaking now. She gave him a wobbly smile he returned and brushed the tears from his face as he ran his large hands over her shoulders and arms, rubbing the trembling muscles beneath them.

"Breakfast?" She asked, returning to her former cheerful mood like stepping into another pair of shoes.

"Shirt first." He insisted and she laughed.

"Have you checked by Sai's cot?"

"Sai's cot?" He frowned, "Why would Sai..." He muttered to himself as he knelt down to rifle through the various articles on his son's bed. She turned and went to the far corner of he room to begin preparing breakfast. Her attention was brought back to her husband as he groaned.

"What?" she turned quickly to identify the problem. Suddenly her face split into a laugh and she threw her head back.

"It's not funny!" Kylo insisted struggling to maintain glaring at her while she laughed, holding his shirt up to stare in horror and humor at the bright yellow sun painted across the chest of his only shirt. She turned back to her task, chuckling to herself as he forced on a furious expression and roared,

"Sai!" and was answered by a shriek,

"I didn't do it!"


	3. BNR4793f

When Rey had been killed seven years ago, it had broken something in the spirit of the Resistance, and had shattered the last few scraps of hope Poe had salvaged through out the long and bloody war. They had been so close to defeat so many times before, but nothing had ever shaken them like her death. There was no closure, no burial, she was just...gone. One moment they had conquered and captured Kylo Ren and the next he'd broken free and taken her with him. Probably to sway her to the dark side or some other evil force user crap. But it was Rey. There would be no swaying her. So when Leia had felt her absence in the force following the days of excruciating pain...they had known it'd come. The monster had drug her to the farthest reaches of the universe to torture her and kill her. Poe felt sick even thinking about it. She was only a girl... a child with so much potential...force or not...and she had been butchered for it. Poe had searched for her body for years after the fact, if anything to give himself a bit of peace...but the monster Kylo Ren had wiped the universe of all traces of her. They hadn't even been able to pinpoint the planet on which she'd died. Seven years later, Luke had gone back into solitude, Finn had left the Resistance all together, and General Organa and he had suffered on like they always did. Loyal to a failing cause a little girl had died for.

Missions had become a much needed escape for Poe. A chance to focus on something so completely, he didn't have time to think of anything else. No time to focus on how alone he was or how old he was becoming. No time to think of all the friends he'd lost and how many more he might. No time to ask questions or remember smiles, nothing but a single purpose and a mission to be accomplished. So when the General had come to him with this mission, he'd gladly accepted. Just a solo watch, following the lead of some First Order chatter they'd intercepted. Just a run of the day. An observation and execution. His sort of deal.

It had all changed when he'd found the x-wing though. A resistance fighter ship docked in a little alcove in the sand. At first he'd figured it was just a stolen smuggler, a few ships a year went missing, intercepted, stolen, stripped for parts. So he'd relayed to base that he'd found one and after confirmation had come forward to investigate further. Might as well, so far they hadn't intercepted anymore chatter on the First Order business.

To his eternal surprise the ship was fully intact and well maintained. The sand had worn away at the paint but it had been well camouflaged and wasn't buried, therefore he had to assume someone had been coming back to manage it. That wasn't normal. No one stripped a ship and came back to maintain it. It was the serial number that he found, fully intact on the left wing, that stopped his heart though.

BNR4793f. An eight digit serial that was seared into his memory. BNR4793f. The number made his blood run cold and his belly well with grief again. Seven years was a long time and grief could be buried and dulled, but reading that serial was like being instantaneously submerged in glacier water and it tore back the scabs like flame. This was the ship that Kylo Ren had stolen when he'd taken Rey. This was the ship she was stolen in. BNR4793f. This likely then was the planet she'd been murdered on. He broke out into a fresh sweat and turned from the ship just in time to double over and empty the contents of his stomach into the sand.

When he stood up he was shaking, running a hand through his hair anxiously and trying desperately to even out his ragged breathing. He'd brought her here. Back to the desert. Back to the blinding heat and suffocating sand to tear her apart slowly. A little girl was tortured to death somewhere in this sand, by a dark menace in a mask. Suddenly rage flooded hiss veins and took over his grief and horror. He shook now with the force of fury overpowering his pain and turned back to the ship to search it for a clue. Anything to tell him where the beast might have gone so he could find him and slaughter him. Poe didn't care if he was one of the most powerful men in the universe, he didn't care about the force crap. He wanted to tear that monster to pieces and force or not he would find some way to do it.

The ship's engine was well oiled and cared for, a tedious task in a desert world such as this. There was only a bit of sand in the gears and Poe would estimate it had been cleaned within the week. That meant that there was a possibility that Kylo Ren was still here. That would be strange, for him to stay, but not impossible. After his escape from Resistance prisons and murdered Rey, he'd disappeared himself, like smoke and shadow. The Resistance had no news on his whereabouts but assumed he was behind the training of Jae Ren. The newest force using puppet of the Supreme Leader. She was only in her early teens but had already laid waste to hundreds of their men. She'd brought down an entire fleet of x-wings single-handedly at one point. She'd only entered the battle two years ago, but they'd discovered the First Order was training her five years ago. Training her was the only reasonable explanation for Kylo Ren's vanishing.

Perhaps they were training here. It would make sense. The only reason the Resistance had even sent one pilot here was because of some random chatter. There hadn't been any galactic warfare on this planet in over two-hundred years. Poe struggled with the emergency latch to open the hatch and gingerly crawled into the cockpit, careful not to disturb anything. There wasn't much...a drive with a map on it, a hand blaster taped under the seat. That was it. He wiped away the dust on the dash and squinted at the meteronomer. It read 1,678,974,532 he frowned and messaged the base.

 _What was the last recorded meter of the stolen X-Wing BNR4793f?_

He waited a few minutes for the reply and turned back to the back seat. His heart froze as he saw the white of the seat was permanently stained in rusty colored blood stains. Rey had been shoved into that seat. His empty stomach threatened to up heave itself again, but her reigned it in.

The ping sounded that informed him that the last recorded meter of the X-Wing was 176,765,431. The ship had only taken one trip after it was stolen. Kylo Ren was still here. He reached for the only item in the back seat, a leather satchel. It was heavier than it looked and he grunted as he heaved it into his lap. He was careful to take note of how it sat in the seat and how the latch kept it closed. There could not be any difference in the scene if someone returned. As soon as he opened the top flap his hands trembled uncontrollably. There sitting on top was the mask of Kylo Ren. He was here. Poe's hand closed over the hilt of the brute's light saber and he shuddered as he thought of all the people it had cut down. Gently moving things aside he found Kylo Ren's dark robes. That made sense, dark colors and the desert didn't usually go well. But at the bottom of the sack with four weeks of rationed food was a neat pile of blood stained white wraps and a pair of little boots. Poe's fists clenched in quaking fury and horror. The freak had kept her clothes. He hadn't just tortured her and murdered her, he'd- Poe snapped his eyes closed and refused to finish the thought. The past was something he could not change. The future however...as he carefully placed everything back the way he'd found it he plotted how he would kill this monster. He decided the ship was as good a trap as any. He'd set up a stake out at the top of the dunes over looking the alcove where the ship was hidden. He would slaughter this beast if it was the last thing he did.

"Alpha One," He snapped into his comm, "This is Blue 4. I have whereabouts of Kylo Ren, Repeat, I have evidence on Kylo Ren. Need back up immediately. Quiet Tact-team. Need Back up. Repeat need back up. Blue 4 out."

A voice of fate crackled over the receiver, "Blue 4 Acknowledged. Back up confirmed. Blue 4 do not engage suspect, confirm."

Poe didn't answer, throwing things into his kit and packing up for his hunt.

"Blue 4, confirm instructions." Home base demanded. Poe promptly snapped his receiver off and began his solo hunt.


	4. It Has Come

Poe found the ship within a few hours. It was the only sign of civilization for over a hundred miles and was a good eight miles from the nearest speeder docking. There was no trail, but there wouldn't be one no matter how many people trekked from the dock to the crash sight because of the winds shifting the sand. It was nestled in a valley flat land. Two miles from the X-Wing, easy access to it, but with the X-Wing so well camouflaged and hidden in the little alcove one might not notice the connection between the two of them. But Poe did. This was the perfect hide out and escape possibility. This was a den the beast could hide in for years and remain undiscovered. It was only by luck that Poe had discovered him. At first everything was in place like it should have been. There was nothing out of the ordinary to draw attention, strategical. Intelligent. Like Ren. His blood boiled with the thought of even the name. But then he'd begun to notice specific things that bothered him. There was a curtain hanging over the pried open exit ramp. Not just a windbreaker or something to keep the heat in...but some small attempt to make the ship look more like a...home. It was a retired empirical Lambda shuttle. It's been here a while. Decades. Why would the Knight of Ren choose an old abandoned, dilapidated ship to live in? Where was the rationale in that. He was on of the highest ranking members of the First Order even if the Resistance hadn't heard of him in years... he would require a ship of luxury, some real sort of shelter...not this piece of junk. Then he notices the paintings. Bright colored suns and flowers litter d the hull of the ship in what could not be mistaken for anything but a child's scrawl. A very small child. Perhaps he truly had been mistaken and found the wrong ship.

Suddenly, from where Poe lay atop a dune watching through his scopes the curtain to the ramp was thrown to the side and a large man stormed down it. He was in boots and black pants but wore no shirt. He has a dark top knot of hair pulled back from a murderous glare on a sharply angled face. A thick boiling scare ran it's way from his forehead, diagonally across his face and off his jaw to delve into his collar bone all the way down to the right shoulder. Poe had never seen his face before...but the scar was a trade mark. Here was his prey, the deadly predator.

Poe observed him from afar, gauging his weaknesses...and finding that himself overwhelmed by the lack thereof he could identify. Everything in that monster's being hummed of power. Poe had felt the savage ravaging of the man's mental capacity with the force when he'd torn him open slowly, lighting each and every neuron in his brain on fire. He'd seen the beast stop a blaster bolt in mid air, felt the heat of it as he was drug forward to meet the menace. The heat of the blaster was nothing compared to the feeling emanating from the man himself, he'd learned. He didn't need the force to recognize the raw power humming and crackling around the man like lightning. Now looking at him from afar he was unnerved by the sheer amount of mass Kylo Ren possessed. Brute lumbering strength boasted proudly from a body such as this. Across his chest the muscles weren't clearly defined, like across his abdomen, but instead it was smooth and solid like granite. One might almost be able to claim that there wasn't even an abnormal amount of muscle there at all but for the fact that even from this distance Poe could see them twitch and roll like gears in a well oiled machine as the man stalked around the side of the ship and out of sight.

He calmed his breathing and forced Rey's young face before the eye of his mind. She deserved justice. She deserved revenge—and as powerful as he looked now, how terrifying must he have seemed to the girl as he tortured her, and shredded her mind and forced himself upon her. No, he would not back down now. He would kill him. Somehow.

He was finally resolved and back at peace with himself when yet another variable through itself into the equation to shake him up. A small child tore around the other side of the ship and the giant emerged once again taking long, lumbering stride to easily over take the child and yank him off his feet. Poe's stomach lurched and he desperately wiped the sweat from his eyes, anxiety thrumming through him like an overworked engine in a paper hull. Where did the child come from? What was Kylo Ren going to do to him? Poe knew he couldn't do anything yet. If he charged in to save the youngling he'd get them both killed and the Resistance would lose the Knight of Ren again. But what was that monster going to do to the boy? Poe had the strong urge to vomit again but instead reached for his sonar-radar aiming it to pick up what was happening. He could not do anything to stop this either, but like Rey, this child would be avenged for whatever sins where committed him. Poe hands shook uncontrollably and he wiped his brow feverishly.

The first sound that came over the radar was...a laugh. A tiny, bell-like child's giggle and as he peered through his scopes again he caught a glance at the Knight of Ren's face split wide in a...joyous grin. It was so foreign and unearthly Poe was frozen to the spot by confusion.

"Was it you?" The man's voice filtered over the radar. So vastly different than the voice the mask spoke that Poe once again questioned whether this was truly the right place and had to remind himself of the scar and other evidence.

"NO!" The little boy in his arms giggled hysterically pushing at the hands that held him, each one bigger than his chest. As Poe looked at the way the man was holding the child he realized his mistake earlier. The man had not yanked the child off his feet, he'd scooped him up gently as though he was holding the most precious thing on earth.

"Oh really?" Kylo Ren asked in mock harshness as he began to tickle the boy in his arms. The child squealed and squirmed in delight and Poe couldn't get rid of the sick feeling only growing in his gut. Who was this child? "And who do you think is the culprit then? Hmmm? Did I do it? Did your mother?"

"I- don't- know!" He gasped tears of mirth streaming down his round face. "I- Don't- know what you're talking about!"

"This!" The man dropped the child gently but held onto his wrist to keep him from running and picked up the discarded article of clothing on the ground. He slipped it on, a shirt Poe realized and glared at the cackling boy as Poe realized there was a bright yellow sun slapped onto the chest of the garment in paint. "Are you telling me you didn't do this?" He raised an eyebrow and squatted down to the boy's level. The boy shook his head mischievously. "Who did it then?"

"Mama." The little boy snickered.

"I don't think so." The man said pulling the tiny child into this grasp again. Poe's breath hitched. This...this was Kylo Ren's child. He could see it now. The angles in the boy's face so cleverly disguised by baby fat. The thick dark curly hair, even, now that he could see his fact, Kylo Ren's grin that was almost too wide for his face. Who the mother was, Poe had no idea. But this was unmistakably the son of Kylo Ren.

"Was too!" The boy squirmed to no avail. "Mama!" He shrieked, "Mama!"

Suddenly the curtain was thrown back to reveal a cream robed desert woman responding to her child's shrieks. Poe stopped breathing.

"Aha!" She chuckled. "The culprit's been caught!"

"No!" He shook his little curly head. "It wasn't me! It was you!" She pulled another shirt from behind her back and revealed a bright red petaled daisy painted across it's chest.

"Oh was it? And who painted this then?"

"Daddy!" He insisted finally squirming free of his father's hold only to be caught up in his mother's. His mother was older. Seven years ages someone, Poe would know. But she still wore white warps to combat the glaring sun. She still pulled her hair back into three buns of red brown waves. Her eyes still squinted closed when she laughed and her nose still scrunched when she smiled. Her arms and legs were slender but wiry strong and seeing her was like being shot through his already churning stomach. Rey was the mother. Rey was alive. Rey was alive and the mother of Kylo Ren's child. Poe still couldn't manage to breathe. From where he lay on the ledge Poe suddenly was met by a thunderous dark gaze as the Knight of Ren suddenly snapped his attention straight at the dune from which he was watching them. He was well camouflaged and was at a far enough distance human eyes shouldn't have been able to see him...but then again...was Kylo Ren really human? Poe lay frozen to the spot, staring the Knight in the eye in petrified breathlessness as they stared at each other from a distance. Poe could see Kylo Ren had just started reaching for his son and murmuring,

"Rey," When the fourth sun broke the horizon line announcing the new day and a fleet of First Order ships broke the horizon with them. The man's focus was diverted from Poe to face the threat.

"What is it Ky?" Rey frowned and reached forward to grab Kylo Ren's outstretched hand. Poe's stomach churned as how she reacted to him. Gently, concerned...what was it that she called him? Ky? Poe was both disgusted and overjoyed. Confusion was churning in his gut. Had he managed to turn Rey to the dark side? Was she brainwashed? Seduced? Was the First Order here for them? Had she been completing missions for them all along? In secret? What did all of this mean? Rey's voice ripped Poe from his musings repeating, "Ky, talk to me, what's the matter? Are you having a vision? Are you okay?" She knelt down in front of him, holding her now quiet son to her side tightly and cupped the man's face gently.

"Is Daddy dreaming again?" The boy whispered, and Poe could barely make out the words due to the static over the Radar.

"No." Kylo Ren's voice was rough and raw, terrified, Poe realized with a jolt. "They're here."

"Who?" Rey frowned running her hand down his face again, "Deep breaths Ky, you're going to be okay, the vision will pass in a minute...just-"

"No, Rey!" Kylo Ren gripped her wrist and tore his gaze from the Horizon to look her face, his own going bone white. "It's not a vision...They're here. They're here for us."

"Who?" Rey whipped around caging her son to her chest in an instinctively protective way that made Poe's bones ache.

"Resistance." He pointed directly up at the dune that Poe was perched on. "And the First Order." He pointed at the fleet only growing on the horizon line. "It has come." There were tears in the man's voice that shook Poe to his core. Kylo Ren closed his eyes once and when he opened them he was a broken man. Poe knew one when he saw one. Those were the eyes of a shattered man who knew he was going to lose everything. Suddenly Poe understood. Kylo Ren didn't sway Rey. She swayed him. He'd left the First Order. The answer made no logical sense... but Poe felt the validity of it in his soul. He hated the fact that it was true and wanted to believe that it wasn't...but it was painted on the Knight of Ren's face as clear as the bright yellow sun on his shirt. The First Order was not coming to pick them up or check in and refuel. The First Order was here to kill and capture.


	5. Trust

It was Kylo who sensed it first. He usually did. Rey had come to rely on her husband's saturation in the force. She had been developing her own powers over the last few years with his help...but she still hadn't found the complete submersion. The force was something she possessed in plethora. Kylo regularly expresed his belief that she had more raw force power than even he did, which interested him considering he was the direct descendant of Anakin Skywalker. He found great interest in trying to track her blood lines and find her heritage because he insisted she was a great and powerful Force user, who must be from a line stronger that Anakins'... there was a time when she would have jumped at the opportunity to find her family, when there was nothing she wanted more...but she had always known they weren't coming back for her...and she was content here. She had a family. She had a husband she knew would never abandon her and a child she knew neither of them would either leave. She didn't want anything more. She didn't need anything more. And while she smiled and went along with her husband's excited chatter and discoveries—his excitement and words were so precious few she'd come to treasure each of them and remember each moment forever- she was not convinced that she was the stronger in the force of the two of them.

Kylo was so complete in his Force. He knew every corner and crevice of it and wore it like he wore his skin. There was no Kylo without his force, they were one and the same thing. She shared the bond with him and felt him wrestle with it day in and day out. Dark and light. But it was a comfortable battle. The straining of muscles to make them stronger. It was not painful like the dark side had been. That had ripped him limb from limb and shredded his soul, stripped him of everything human and left him wounded, naked in the dark. No, this was a battle that he fought daily, not a battle he was abused by daily. She'd lived this battle with him for seven years now, and together they wrestled with the dark and the light and found the balance between.

She remembered the first one like yesterday, the way he'd collapsed, the way he'd shaken for days, couldn't eat, sleep, speak, move...he'd just laid there in her arms trembling, eyes wide in terror of something he could see, but she couldn't. After the third day, she'd thought she'd lost him forever. She'd sobbed his name and held him close to her, cradling him like a child, although she hadn't ever held one at that point. She'd run her fingers through his hair trying anything to hold onto him, unsure of how long she'd still have that chance. She'd been so terrified it was the first time she'd realized just how much she loved him. One of the first times her fear and hate of him had left her without inhibitions and she had realized just how strong their bond was...she couldn't imagine a life without him in it. He had been so quiet on that side of the bond...so...still. It was hardly the Kylo Ren she'd come accustomed to trying to keep out of her head. The roaring and thrashing of a storm at sea. This was a single drop of water dripping from her canteen. Weak, meager, almost out of life. But when she'd reached for him, she found the dam he'd built across that section of his mind to keep her out. When she'd finally managed to slip in past his defenses she'd been overwhelmed at first, but together they'd managed fight back the darkness. She'd shown him how...After that moment things where different between them. It was as great a moment in their bond as the first time they'd made love. Crawling into that dark space of his mind and setting up a shelter there for him to find, was just as personal and private and precious as crawling into his bed with him. She hadn't realized it when she'd done it...but she wouldn't change it for anything now.

Understanding the darkness in Kylo was like understanding that he was intelligent or emotional. There was no separating the passion from his soul. It was like handing a knife to him and asking him to skin his left arm to the bone because it had hurt someone once. The darkness in Kylo, she'd learned, was not to be feared, but to be understood, accepted and controlled. Some of his mighty force was dark, and so the dark was something she'd learned to accept...even love at times, because there was no Kylo without his force. It moved like another limb, and wrapped itself so deeply in his mind it measured his emotions and while he may control how he used the force...the force also controlled how it used him. This was a power, Rey didn't think she'd ever possess. Not that she minded. Kylo was much stronger that her physically and the only thing that really meant in their relationship was that he was a better protector for her and her son. The same went for the force. She may have powerful reserves, but without the weaponry to utilize that power like Kylo had, she could only go so far.

As she stared at Kylo as he breathed those fateful words she'd seen in his eyes he'd been here before. He'd watched this sunrise and horizon before. He'd felt this windblown sand and tasted this fear before. This was the fulfillment of one of his force visions and he knew how this day was going to end. Her blood ran cold at his face. How was this day going to end?

"Rey," He gripped either side of her face firmly and told her, "I need you to do everything I say. There is only one way we all live to see the end of this day. Only one. You must do everything I say. Alright?"

Her face was numb in terror as she nodded obediently, desperately clutching her son and mumbling,

"Alright."

"Give me Sai and go torch the ship." He instructed pulling her precious baby from her arms.

"But Kylo..." She whispered.

"Do as I say Rey." He said firmly, as for the fear and pain in his eye she complied. Kylo never gave her orders. He offered advice, helpful suggestions, but never told her what she was to do. But this was the only way he'd said...so did that mean that they died if she didn't? By the way he was holding Sai to himself, she was sick with the feeling something horrible was going to happen to her baby.

"Wait five minutes." He told her. "Then torch the ship and clear out. Meet Sai at the X-wing in fifteen minutes, no later. I'm having him take off with or without us." Then Kylo turned from her and ran as quickly as he possibly could, not paying heed to the fact that without wraps he was already burning and would be blistering in ten minutes, clutching her baby boy to him desperately as though this was the last time he'd ever hold the small child again. Heart hammering in her rib cage she turned once to look up to the hill Kylo had claimed held the resistance fighters on it. She stared up at them and wondered what role they would play in this day before shaking her head and going to complete her husband's orders. They would live through the day if it all went according to plan. The fact that she didn't know the plan didn't matter. She trusted Kylo. She trusted him.

Author's note: But should she? Dun dun DUN! Please comment and give me feedback. Predictions, excitments, critiques... I'd love to hear what y'all r thinking. :)


	6. The Strongest Thing in the Galaxy

Kylo had never run like this in his entire life. He'd run, of course. He'd run from his parents, from his uncle, from the Light. He'd run from Snoke and the First Order, the Dark...He'd fled with Rey, and felt terror pumping through his viewings...but nothing had ever terrified him like this day. The image of his son's face frozen in death, round cheeks ashen and wide eyes glossy, a blaster hole in his tiny skull propelled him faster than he'd ever thought was humanly possible. His dark force thrummed, dark, red, passionate, terrified, in his chest and intoxicated his heart, pumping pure force now rather than blood through his veins there was no light here now. His muscles were the strongest they'd ever been, feeding off the force with rapid hunger and the sweat pouring off his body was thick and potent. It was as though his entire body was weeping in terror.

Sai's tiny hands gripped his shirt around his neck in bunches and he clung to the child in a way he knew probably hurt the boy. But he was so panicked, so scared, he couldn't help it. This was the last time he was going to hold his son. This was is last chance to save him...He'd seen it. The First Order would kill both Sai and Rey before they killed him if it didn't end this way. This was the only way. Sai didn't say anything as they ran, just clung to him in petrified silence. Children could be so aware of what was happening around them at times it grieved him. Did his baby know that there were men who wanted to kill him? Why couldn't he grow up safe, happy, why couldn't Sai be given the childhood he deserved? Why must his son also be traumatized by these people? It would traumatize him, Kylo was aware of that fact. His father was likely going to die to day, he'd might lose his mother too. There was no avoiding that now. Kylo ached in his soul knowing that his son might experience the desolate loneliness Rey feared so much after growing up alone...but even traumatized...at least he'd live.

Uncertainty had frozen Kylo when the ships had first arrived...this choice he'd made...it would save his son...but it would get him killed and sometimes Rey died in the vision too. He had been torn when the fleet had risen with the forth sun... his son? Or his wife? How was he to choose! The image of Rey, choking on her own blood, dying slowly, several feet from him, alone, was painful. He'd wept, when he woke from that vision and it had taken days of Rey comforting him for him to recover...he'd never loose that image...her gurgling his name, eyes wide in a terror that was so foreign on her brave face... white warps across her breast crimson stained and blackened in blaster bolts. They made him watch from a distance too far to hold her and comfort her as she slowly drowned in the blood that kept her living before they finally ended him too. When he'd woken up sobbing, he refused to let go of her all night. Holding her so tightly to him he could feel the slight twinge of pain it caused her but she hadn't complained, simply let him hold her and sob into her hair, pressing her face into his shoulder and crushing her... it was far, far better than the thought of her dying away from his embrace. Alone. Like she'd been born. That fate was unbearable...but so were her screams harmonized with his in vicious agony as the soldier shot their baby through the head.

When the fleet had risen he'd been torn...and even now his heart throbbed with uncertainty in his choice...but nothing would hinder his desperate flight as he tore across the desert...the most precious being in the universe pressed to his chest. Finally he reached the alcove and tore the camouflaged tarp from over the ship. He was tearing the hood off with force he didn't know he possessed and nestling his baby down in the safety of this escape. It was terrifying, the thought of sending his vulnerable child into the stratosphere without him, likely without his mother, helpless against the forces of the galaxy...but he had no other choice. He wanted to scream and tear his own eyes out...the dark was swarming over him and he beat it back a bit. He couldn't let it consume him yet. He had to love his wife and son one last time... He had to be a gentle and concerned father now...this may be the last memory his son had of him...he would rage and he would destroy and crush those after his family later...but not now. Now he was Daddy.

"Daddy?" Sai asked, quietly, "What's going to happen to us?"

Kylo looked into his son's young and tender face and was torn. He would not lie to this child. But neither could he give him the brutal truth...everything was not going to be okay...but telling his precious child that by the end of the day his mother would either be separate from him, for who knows to long, or drowning in her own blood... and his father would either be a rotting corpse on the sands of the place that he'd called home his entire life, or worse taken by and enemy of the worst type to be taken apart piece by piece for his betrayal of them...that was not a truth he could share either.

"I don't know what's going to happen to us, Sai." He told him honestly, biting back tears and cupping his face, "But I do know the most important things there are to know."

"What are those?" Sai questioned meekly, obviously disturbed by his father's tears.

Kylo took a deep breath to try and control his voice. "I love your mother, and she loves me, and we both love you more than you'll ever know. That's the most important thing you ever need to remember, Sai. Love is the strongest thing in the world, alright? No matter what anyone else tells you, whether they be a Jedi, or a general, or a Teacher or a friend, you remember that your father told you Love is the strongest thing in the galaxy, alright? Can you do that?"

"Yes." Sai nodded, tears flooding his own green speckled eyes. "I love you, Daddy." His bottom lip trembled.

"I know." Kylo nodded, clenching his teeth against those tears. "I know buddy, I know." Then he cupped the little face in both his hands and looked the boy square in the face. "Those ships out there, they're coming because they want your mother and I. They can't know about you, alright? They can't know anything about you, ever. You're a secret, okay? Do you understand me?"

"Yeah." Sai nodded, tears dribbling down his round cheeks. "But why?"

"Because they're evil men. There are evil men every where Sai. On every side of a war. There is no good reason for war...but there are good reasons to fight, alright? No matter what happens to us after this you gotta make me a promise, okay?"

"Okay." he hiccuped a frightened sob.

"No matter what kind of a man you grow up to be-" Kylo's voice broke and he had to stop, shuddering with sobs he was trying so desperately to mask from his son's observant eye. "You remember what is right, and you chase after it. You might not always catch it but don't give up. Chase it! Remember that love is the strongest thing in the Galaxy and always to chase after what is good. Can you promise that?"

"Yes." Sai whispered.

"Alright, good boy." He gave the child a teary smile and reached into the back seat to pull his Ren helmet from the satchel back there. "You wear this when you're flying, kay?" He slide it over his son's curl crowned head and adjusted it as best he could. "But whenever you leave the ship you hide it, kay?"

"Okay." Kylo Ren's voice responded and Kylo jumped nearly as high as his son did as the mask filtered his voice. He gave a wet chuckle and switched the voice masker off. "Kinda creepy, huh?" He asked, The over-sized helmet nodded. "Do you remember the coordinates you have memorized?"

"For in case of an emergency?" his sons blessedly bell-like voice asked from beneath the mask.

"Yeah, those one's, do you remember them?"

"Uh-huh." he nodded again.

"Good, when the timer," He pulled the helmet off and began programming a timer into the viser, "gets to zero, you need to fly, alright? You need to leave as fast as you can and get to those coordinates, kay?"

"But, what about mama and you?" He asked with wide frightened eyes.

"That's what the timer is for. If your Mama's not here when you hit zero-" Kylo choked on his words and took a deep breath before finishing, "You leave her here. Kay? You might have to leave both your mother and I here, but it's going to be okay, because you remember what I said?"

"That love is the strongest this in the galaxy?" Sai looked at him suspiciously.

"Yeah," Kylo nodded, pushing the hair Rey had braided that morning and was already pulling free behind his son's ears. "The strongest thing. Even stronger than...than death...when someone dies." Finally a tear slipped down his cheek and his sons pudgy little hand reached to stop it.

"Daddy, are you and Mama going to die?" he asked with a both terrified and knowing look.

"The force is with you, Sai." Kylo promised instead. "And as long as the force is with you, you'll have your mother and I as well." he pressed a kiss to his sons' forehead for what was likely the last time and memorized the way his soft, wet skin felt against his lips, before pulling the mask over his son's head again, snatching his light saber from the pack in the back and pulling the hood closed. Little hands slapped against the window in terror as his son screamed,

"No! Don't go, Daddy! Don't die!"

"Go to the coordinates, Sai!" Kylo yelled so he'd hear him through the glass. "Go to the coordinates, you hear me?"

His son nodded, his sobs were audible even through the glass. "I love you, son." he choked on his words and turned his back on his baby, setting out in a jog back out of the alcove, running from the banging of little fists on a glass hood and the terrified screams of a little boy begging his father not to run into the face of certain death. "May the force go with you," He whispered and swallowed his grief and let the darkness of his fear and passion consume him. He ran with the force of a tidal wave to now fight for the life of his wife now that he'd secured the life of his son. There may be no good reason for war...but there was always reason to fight for what was good in this world. Always reason to die for was good, and precious...because love...is the strongest thing in the galaxy.


	7. The Only Way

Rey had torched the ship like she'd been instructed and cleared out quickly, she guessed she had fifteen minutes before the flames reached deep enough to hit the still half-full fuel tank of the ship she'd called home for seven years now and it exploded in obliteration...it was harder than she'd thought it would be...soaking her sons' drawings and stuffed toys in gasoline, slipping one drawing into the lining of her shirt first, unable to part with it, soaking the kitchen floor and cabinets where she'd attempted to teach Kylo how to cook with the meager skills she'd acquired. She'd fought with her husband here, in the kitchen, they'd screamed at each other over that table, bracing strong forearms against it, refusing the urge to physically lash out of each other though their faces had been within inches of each other's, red, twisted and angry as they fought...they'd kissed in this kitchen too, melted into each other's arms, drowning in each other before he would pick her up like she didn't weigh a thing and carry her over to their bed without breaking the kiss. Her hands shook as she doused the bed too in the fire fuel... every night had been spent here, wrapped in each other's arms...holding each other close...making love when they weren't too tired to move...their son was conceived and born here on this bed, raised in this home they now destroyed. He'd taken his first steps there across that threshold...the same threshold Ky and her had slept on when they first stumbled into this ship that night of the sandstorm seven years ago...when he'd been weak and bleeding and nearly died as they held onto eachother, listening to the groaning of the ships old hull in the storm...a sound so foreign to them then...but now so familiar. This was their home, where they suffered and rejoiced with each other, fought and loved eachother... Rey had never been attached to a place before...but now...in the face of possibly losing her beloved husband and precious son...now she longed for those memories, found value in the home she dropped the lighter in and turned from watching it burn, unable to bear it. Snatching her light saber from where it rested above the door frame of their home she ran from the memories and towards the little X-wing that held the memory makers. She was half-way across the plain, five-minutes from the ship when the fleet finally reached her, swarming her like bees to a hive and overwhelming her by their sheer numbers. As her blue saber hummed to life and she snarled at the storm troopers now charging down the exit ramp, she burned with the heat of a fire far more consuming that the fires that now ate away at her little home. She blazed with the fire of a mother and protector who's child was being threatened and ignited like the wife she was, married to a powerful man that everyone in the universe wanted claim to. Here the desert cat was staking her claim. The claims to the child and that man where hers and hers alone and as the first saber bit into the flesh of a storm trooper she had no time to grieve for them, as she normally did for Finn's sake, only time to accept the darkness in her for her families sake.

Poe was torn. He didn't know if he should fly in and fight to the death with Rey, he could see her from here as her blue lightsaber flickered and flashed, dismembering storm troopers as though they were but clay to be crumbled. He wanted to rush in and swoop her out of the battle, but the tiny child below him in the alcove kept him stationary. He would not leave this little child to any possibility of death. He couldn't be more than five or six years old and Poe's heart ached for him, remembering his mother's last words to him just before she flew her last mission. The flight that would claim her life.

Love is the strongest thing in the galaxy, that's what Kylo Ren had told his son before setting off on his last mission... Take care of your father now. Those had been his mother's last words to him. And he'd turned his back on his father as soon as he was old enough to leave him...a decision Poe grieved committing even now after over thirty years...he would not turn his back on this boy, this was Rey's son. Even if his father was Kylo Ren...His mother was Rey and Poe couldn't bear the thought of leaving the helpless babe to the mercy of the First order. They had none, not even for the young.

So he set up his rifle and scoped out the alcove while the timer ticked down for the boy. Poe knew that timer would reach zero before Rey reached the ship. There was no avoiding that now. Perhaps Kylo Ren had even known that when he'd set the timer and given his son those instructions...perhaps he'd been blindly wishing that Rey would reach them on time...but Poe could see her out there from his perch, he could see the troopers swarming her like ants and the fleet of twenty ships circling her like vultures, spitting bolts at her that were each longer than she was tall. She was fending them off viciously...but it wouldn't be enough. Poe wanted to scream in frustration. Rey was alive! He;d found Rey alive only to watch her die! No! He couldn't! He wouldn't! But...He couldn't save Rey without risking the life of her son and what mother wouldn't rather die than lose her child? For the first time in his life Poe was anxious to see Kylo Ren enter the battle field.

And there he was. Charging straight at the pack like a bull. His sleeveless shirt had left him exposed to the sun and he was burning an angry red already... but he didn't seem to notice as his snapping red light saber snarled to life and he let out a roar that actually scattered the Storm Trooper's ranks closest to him. As the dark knight reached the swarm, he swung his light saber in a mighty heave and cut down three troopers at the middle. If Rey fought like a cat, quick, sharp and agile, then Kylo Ren fought like a Gurogant, a large bull with spiked tusks, throwing powerful swings and obliterating any one who dared stand between him and his mate. It was chilling to watch. He wiped out an entire quarter of the circle of foes surrounding Rey, just shy of 100 soldiers and Poe's sick stomach was comforted only by the fact that he was racing forward to protect Rey, a strange and foreign thought that his mind would instantly reject if it weren't for the fact he'd watched them interact and heard the Knight's last words to his son. That there was a man who fully intended to die to save his family and was committed to taking as many beings as possible down with him who dared threaten that family. Logic didn't need to be present at all, only proof. It didn't need to make sense if it was true.

Finally the Knight of Ren reached the Jedi and they instantly turned their backs to each other, guarding each other and slaughtering their numerous foes. Watching them was disturbingly mesmerizing, a wild and feral dance of complicated steps and deadly intent, limbs and bodies falling like leaves of a forestland's autumn; burnt, twisted and dark with auburn red. Blue and red flashed so close and so swiftly their streaks would blend on occasion leaving purple slices across the viewers eyes. As deadly and mighty as these two were apart, they were twice that together. They flipped over each other and ducked under swings as though they were somehow of the same mind controlling two bodies and every so often a blast of the force would ripple from their epicenter to crush the nearest soldiers like paper.

It was painfully futile though, between the never ending supply of storm troopers on the ground and the firing ships above they were hopelessly outmatched even as terrifying as they were. Poe readjusted his grip on his rifle as a posse of soldiers split from the mob and began trekking towards the little alcove Kylo Ren had come from. There was no way they were going totally a hand on that child though. Not on Poe's watch. The whirring of the little X-wings engine came to life and it began turning to take off. A comforted smile touched Poe;s lips, he'd been afraid the kid might not follow his father's orders...he knew he wouldn't have as a child. But apparently the youngling had enough sense to know when his father knew what he was doing. The ship had just stretched out in it's first sprint down the short hand-done runway when the first troopers rounded the corner, and one by one they were picked off like little white daisies, falling like snowflakes. The ship hit the air and Poe couldn't help the swelling in his heart as he noticed the flying technique the little child had inherited from his mother. Not yet a decade old and he was already mastering the X-wing.

But then the firing started. Four of the ships peeled off from the fleet to charge at the lone little x-wing firing like a mad frenzy of a hailstorm. The little boy dipped up and down, swerving in a desperate attempt to dodge the strikes, but it was to no avail. One hit a wing, causing minor damage and the other nearly skimmed the cockpit. Poe fired desperately at the ships with his rifle, but was only able to nick one, they were moving to fast and too far away, this little sniper wasn't made for airstrikes. Poe watched in horror as seven rounds of plasma blaster bolts aimed directly from the core set off in an immediate round. A yell tore from his throat as in that split second he thought he'd failed the boy, the terrified scream of the mother and pained roar of the father tore his heart in two...but suddenly, as quickly as the bolts had left their barrels, they froze in mid air, trembling and angrily humming as they were held in place against their will. Seven devils of fire and fury leashed back, snarling and struggling against a power they'd never met before—the strongest thing in the galaxy.

Poe's attention was drawn back to Kylo Ren who'd dropped his light saber and defenses to hold the blasters in the air and give his son the needed escape. It wasn't just the bolts though, he realized in awe, as the little boy shot out into the stratosphere, his father paused the blasters in the air and the ships that had birthed them. Several tons of metal and equipment surged against the man's force grip, but the overworked engines and hyper-drives were wailing to no avail. Kylo Ren had dropped everything to stop them from touching his son and Rey flickered around him, blocking everything from reaching him as he concentrated all his power against the air. Finally he released the blaster bolts and they crashed into each other, exploding into a cloud of fire, and in one mighty sweep of the arm he sent the far-most ship crashing into the other, causing a deadly chain of explosions in the air like fireworks as he took all four out with one motion. Their son free, Kylo Ren grabbed Rey's wrist and charged through the pack again, carving a way for them with his crimson blade as she warded shots from behind off with her sapphire one. When they finally broke through they ran as though the hounds of hell were after them and raced for the alcove. Not to escape, or find advantage, simply to run from their hunters. There was nothing left for them to do. They were outmatched. And they'd already won the life of their son.

Poe scrambled back too his ship and started her up shoving his helmet on and rolling her around, throwing the rifle stand in the compartment and snapping his jump suit up, he skated to the rim of the dune just as the two force-user's rounded into the alcove. A dead end. The end. They skated to a stop, and Rey immediately reached for him, touching his face, tearily asking if he was alright, clinging to his shirt like a wet kitten.

"Are you okay? Let me look at your neck, the blaster took some skin. Can you breathe okay? Are you sure Sai remembered the coordinates? Are you sure you're okay, Ky?"

"Rey," Kylo Ren gripped her wrists and pulled them away from where she was trying to tend to his wound. Stress tore Poe limb, he could not save them both...and while he wouldn't mind leaving the knight of Ren...he was beginning to doubt that Rey would share his sentiment. "Rey," Kylo Ren repeated. "It's okay. Breathe, alright? It's okay, Sai is fine, everything's going to be alright."

"I thought we agreed we weren't going to lie to each other." Rey smiled at him with tears in her eye...one dribbled over the rim and he caught it with his thumb, stroking his huge hand down the side of her face and cupping her jaw gently.

"I'm not lying, it's going to be alright. Sai's going to be fine." He promised, dark gaze flickering anxiously between the entrance, where troopers would enter any moment, and the dune rim, where Poe stood watching, tendons and ligaments groaning under the weight of his balled up muscles.

"But he's going to grow up alone, Ky!" She cried, tragic terror trembling her entire frame as tears poured down her face. "He's going to be so alone, and vulnerable, there will be no one to comfort him when he's scared...or take care of him when he's sick-" Her voice cracked and suddenly she was gripping Kylo Ren's wrists as he cupped her face, her knuckles growing white with the force of it. "I don't want to die, Ky! I don't want to leave our son! I'm not ready- I don't want to die-" She started sobbing.

"Rey!" Kylo Ren gasped, pulling her to his chest and caging her entire head with one hand against him, "You're not going to die today. Sai's not going to be an orphan, you're not going to die, you're going to be fine. Sai's going to be fine. You're going to be alright." His voice was shaking violently.

"How can you lie to my face like that!" She pulled free and shoved away from him.

"I'm not lying to you, Rey. I'd never lie to you." He swore vehemently.

"Your- your vision?" She asked suddenly, breathless, eyes wide in hope. "How do we escape this?"

Kylo Ren's gaze dropped from hers and he murmured, " _We_ don't, Rey."

"What?- but you said..." She began and suddenly her eyes blew wide enough to see the whites all the way around the iris. "NO." She refused, "No, Kylo. Either we both die, or we both live. There is no other option."

"I've _seen_ all the options, Rey." He responded steely eyed, "This _is_ the only way." He reached for her and pressed a kiss to her forehead. She jerked away from him like he'd burned her.

"No!" She whispered, her voice completely choked off, "I can't live without you, Ky!"

"I love you." He responded with tears of his own before throwing her to the rim of the dune with the force. The scream that tore itself from Rey's throat was enough to freeze blood, but immediately Poe was by her side, pulling her back as she tried to scramble back down the side to him again.

"NO! KY!" She screamed as Poe hauled her up by the waist and dragged her away from the rim. She threw and elbow back into Poe's face and another into his gut and suddenly his air supply was cut off and he was choking and releasing her, falling to the ground. She stood above him, tear stained and bloody, rage and grief painting her face for war and Poe wondered as he choked on his own throat if he'd ever known this woman at all...but then she was releasing him with a startled, "Poe?" And it was so soft, and confused and Poe saw her again. The girl who always fought for what was right.

"Rey," he gasped surging to his feet again, "We have to go. There's not much time."

"But..." Her gaze was drawn back to Kylo Ren who stood still at the bottom of the alcove looking up at her as the first troopers rounded the corner. "Ky!" She yelled, her voice raw and hoarse, snapping in the wind.

"Find Sai!" He called back. "I love you Rey." Then he turned his back on her and charged straight at the troopers cutting them aside and breaking free to run across the desert, half a fleet of First Order ships firing at him and a good 'nother 200 soldiers trailing him. A few ships broke free of the fleet and flew in to scout out the alcove and Poe dropped to the ground, pushing Rey into the sand beside him and holding her down as they searched for her. Their camouflage paid them well and Rey covered her mouth to silence the sobs, so eventually the ships turned back to pursue Kylo Ren, deciding him the bigger target. As soon as they were gone Rey was up again whispering,

"Don't do this Ky, what are you doing?"

He was running back to the ship, Poe realized, though there wasn't much to run back to. The whole thing was lit up like a torch, there was nothing he could use as refuge or cover. It wasn't cover he was seeking though, he slowed as he reached the ship, stood there in front of his home and watched it burn. The ships circled in close and the troopers drew around him like a cloak, Surrounding him and immobilizing him,

"Kylo Ren." A general's voice commanded over the loud speaker. "Lay down your weapon."

"No, no,no" Rey was murmuring. "The ship-"

Exploded. The ship exploded into a million pieces of shrapnel, billowing flame and liquid metal taking out nearly the entire fleet in one fell. The force of the blast was enough to feel from the dune on which they stood. Rey's face went bone white as her eyes glazed over and she whispered, 'Ky-" Before collapsing in the sand limply.

It wasn't shock, Poe knew that. Certainly there was shock... but Rey dropped and paled the way the General and dropped and paled when Han Solo had been killed. Rey sensed something through the force. Poe stood witness to the smoldering death of Kylo Ren, but Rey felt it. And for her sake he mourned the loss as he scooped her limp frame up from the sand and slid her into the cock pilot seat, buckling her in and snapping an helmet over her head. Tears poured from her wide, unblinking eyes as she stared straight ahead at something that was not there, desperately wishing to see someone she would not see. Not ever again. Not in life at least. Poe's beaten and bruised heart throbbed as he jumped into the cockpit and pulled the hood over the hull, pulling out and flying away from the wreckage of what used to be called a home, with what used to be called a family. His co-pilot leaned against the window, unable to tear her gaze from the blast, and he slid into the stratosphere as quickly as possible. He had Rey. He finally rescued Rey. He tried to focus on that fact and that fact alone, but he couldn't forget the picture of a man he called his enemy, sun burned to a red crisp, wearing a grey shirt with his child's painted sun across his chest, dark mane pulling free, eyes wet with tears, powerful frame heaving in sweat...telling his lover he loved her for the very last time. Never had Kylo Ren looked so small than in that moment, and yet never had he been so strong. Love truly is the strongest thing in the galaxy. Poe sighed as he signaled base and changed coarse to get his passenger to safety. Focus on the mission. He reminded himself, no time to think, no time to feel, only time to act. Complete the mission. No time for anything else.

 **Author's Note: Poor Rey. :( Please Review! :) Tell me what you think, I need some feedback. Also, heads up, after this week I will start posting a chapter a week. I have almost 50 pages more already written, but I'm just going to focus of finishing it, so I'll be posting once maybe twice a week. I will also be hopefully posting another Story at some point in the foreseeable future for those of you who like my work :). Again: Please review! Thank you :)**

 **-D.**


	8. To Live and Die

**Authors note: Hey everyone, so here's this weeks update, it is a sad and painful one, but I really wanted to show the affects of a severed force , it's not so great. ;) Also, thank you so much my followers and reviewers! I love opening my email and finding real live people I don't even know reading my work! It's a bit strange, I've read and written fanfiction for years now, but I've never had the nerve to publish and I'm so glad I finally did! You all are such an encouragement, please keep me in the loop for what y'all are thinking. When you're mad at me (though please be nice-ish;)), when you're sad, excited, making unintelligible noises that express emotion ;) I love to hear it, ALL of it! :) Thanks again, and enjoy this chapter, another one should be coming next week.**

 **-D.**

Rey had never felt pain like this in her entire life. It was as though her body had been turned inside out, her heart now beating against her ribs with no flesh to protect it from the cold harshness of the blackness of space around her. Poe sat in front...a stranger to her now...silent. What was he to say? What was there to say? They flew through space to meet up with his backup team...but she was leaving her organs on the sands of her home. Torn apart, shredded by fire and furious love. Her intestines stretches from the ship to their shuttle. Pulling taut and tearing with every meter they flew away from her husband's body...though there wasn't much left of it. He'd tried to block her out when he ran from her...but he'd lost control when the blast hit him from behind and she'd felt the fire rip into his back and crush his bones. She'd felt the blinding hot pain and sudden sharp crack of his spine...and instead of following him into nothing, she was forced to remain in the galaxy...alone. Drawing away from the desert planet, leaving a bloody trail of agony behind her to blot out the stars. The chords that tethered them together where tighter about her heart than ever before, now in the absence of him, and all she could feel on the end of the bond where her husband used to dwell, was her own intoxicating agony. There used to be power thrumming on the other side there, and the mind of her mate. Dark, and bright, brave with fright...all the days and nights. She used to feel his frustration explode within him, used to feel when he was teetering on the brink of losing control, she used to own his precious heart, full of tragedy and heartbreak and unconditional love...she used to break into a smile like the midday sun when she felt his heart swell as he watched his son. The pride and joy of a father...she had felt the terror there as he ran away from her with their baby in his arms, had felt him tear his heart in two as he spoke his last words to his son. She'd felt the conflictions as he fled from her, to draw the ships. The loyalty that surpassed that of anyone in the galaxy, wanting to give everything he had to save her and their baby boy and yet not wanting to abandon her. She felt the absence of his strength and passion and power thrumming on the other side now...all she could feel was molten pain in the whole where his soul used to dwell.

She wanted to grab either side of his face and press kisses to it fervently...she knew exactly where it dipped and swayed, had mesmerized the way his wet skin had felt beneath her lips, she knew the feeling of his mighty arms caged around her better than she knew the feeling of her own. She wanted to pull him to her and hold him tight one last time, and would have given anything to go back and love him in the stead of her screaming. She knew he felt how much she loved him, and was not in question of it at all...but it was for her sake she wanted that moment back, she wanted to feel him trembling lips press the kiss to her forehead again as he tried so desperately to hold himself together for her sake. She wanted to grab at that ridiculously painted shirt and keep him from going. She wanted to lie down in the sand with him and die with him, if only to end this loneliness. She hadn't had her mind to herself in nearly nine years and hated now how empty it would become now. It was not empty yet, that half of her brain her husband used to hold was now pouring forth agony and pain like a wound in the planet's surface, molten lava in the form of death and suffering swelled from it to ignite the inside of her skull, tearing the membrane from the bone and crushing her mind in it's magnitude.

She couldn't move for the grief and pain, couldn't hardly breath. All she could manage were harsh short breaths through the silent sobs and eve as they landed and Poe leapt from the ship, she remained unmoving, shaking in the back seat as she burned alive, seared and blackened burnt fingers clawing through the ashes back in her home, hoping to find some last remnant on her husband's strong frame to cling to, something to curl into one last time, something besides his memory...but there was nothing, and as darkness finally clouded over her eyes mercifully to end this suffering temporarily she let out a scream of desolate despair, unable to manage the words to tell her dead mate what he'd meant to her and why she couldn't...couldn't live with out him.

General Organa had been going over maps for their next airstrike when it'd happened. She'd just fingered one of the outer reaches planet, began the thought of what it was for when the bond had opened. It was a split second, but she knew that mind anywhere. She gasped and stumbled back from the map as her consciousness immediately reached for her sons in shock. It was purely instinctual...after everything...everything between them, everything he'd done, the mother still reached for her baby boy because that was what she was made to do...but then, as suddenly as it had come it had disintegrated in her grasp. The cry that erupted from her mouth drew the attention of her guards- a ridiculous addition, she regularly told the council- who rushed to her side as she fell to her knees, overwhelmed by searing hot pain that ignited every cell in her body momentarily and then ended as swiftly as it had come. She pushed at the hands that attempted to held her up and waved away the voiced concerns, tears threatening to spill over her cheeks. Once again she reached there, in that little corner he'd barricaded himself in, and found the door unhinged and blown open from a deadly force exploding from the inside out. For the first time in twenty-one years she stepped into her son's side of the bond and moaned at the sight of it. There was nothing left here. Nothing left to remember her boy by, nothing left to recognize the man he became, only ashes of a dark life filled with sorrow and pain not unfamiliar to her and the echos of agony she couldn't quite grasp. As her physical body bent over her knees and warm hands were pressed to her back, questions and concerns falling on her deaf ears, she fell to her knees in her mind also amoungst the ashes and sobbed silently, too overwhelmed to make a noise. Her son was dead. She'd finally lost her baby to the darkness completely. There was no hope for coming back from death, there was no light for the dead.

When she finally rose from her kneeling position, she staggered over to her desk and collapsed against it, hands shakily re-securing her bun and smoothing out her uniform.

"Are you alright, General?" One of her hulking guards frowned, placing a hand on her shoulder gently. "Yes, Den, I'm alright." She lied smoothly, ironing out the trembles in her voice. She would grieve for he son, Dark force or not, murderer or not, he was her son and he was dead. She would grieve him in private though, not to show and dishearten her weary troops. Many of them hated Kylo Ren with a livid passion and had every right to. Many had lost loved one's to his slaughter...she had as well. There would be celebrations over this victory that she would not dampen...but would not partake in either. Instead, in her solitude she would mourn the twisted life of her son cut short so young. She'd lost him long ago, but now she had no hope of ever getting him back again. "Ceel," She spoke into the comm in a cool, collected tone of a general in a war, not a mother and grieving widow. "Have you made contact with Blue 4 since his last checkpoint?" She pulled up a map of the planet Poe had been following First Order chatter to.

"Yes, General," he just made contact a few moments ago, "He reports that his mission was accomplished and he will meet the back up tactic team at the rendezvous..."Ceel's voice trailed off, though the General could still hear her uncertain breaths on the other end of the receiver.

"Ceel? Anything else?" She asked gently.

"Yes...umm...Kylo Ren is confirmed d-dead." the communications girl added hesitantly.

"I know, it's alright dear." The General gave a sad smile at her laced fingers. "I felt it. Anything else?"

The girl sighed in relief at the general's reaction and added with much more enthusiasm, "Yes! They found Rey."

The general's heart lurched painfully. Han and Rey...those were her son's kills that wounded her most deeply. Those where the deaths that made him truly unredeemable. Those were coldblooded murders.

"Alright." Her voice trembled a slight bit before she mastered it again. "Contact Forc and have him prepare a burial pod-" She began, shutting her eyes against unshed tears.

"No! No General! She's alive! Blue 4 confirmed she's alive!"

Leia stared dumbly at her map, not fully comprehending what she was saying, "Wh-What?" She finally mumbled.

"Rey's alive, General Organa?"

"Is she alright?" Leia leaned forward and gripped her desk harshly.

"Poe say she's a little banged up, but is healthy physically. Here, he's patched in on the other line."

"Poe?" Leia asked anxiously into the other line. There was heavy breathing and uncomfortable shuffling, but he didn't respond. "Poe can you hear me?" She asked, trying to ignore the fact that both of them were uncomfortable with. Her son's death.

"Yes." He responded hesitantly, "Loud and clear, General."

"I want a full mission report," she demanded.

"Umm...Respectfully General, I'd prefer if you came here for the debrief." He responded uncomfortably.

"Poe, it's alright." She sighed, running a hand over her face, "I felt it happen, alright, I know. It's alright. I'm alright. Please just give me a mission report."

"Yeah...well..." He sighed, "Listen, General, Rey felt it too, and it's...there's something wrong with her...I mean as soon as it...um..." He coughed uncomfortably, "As soon as it happened she collapsed, and was experiencing some sort of paralysis...she's passed out now...but-"

"Is she alright? What did Be- Kylo Ren do to her?" Her voice trembled again and she grit her teeth in frustration at her emotional frailty.

"Umm, nothing...I mean...Look, General Organa, I'd really appreciate to do this off the airways, I'd like it to go straight to you...For...for Rey's sake."

She sucked in a deep breath that hissed against her teeth. What had he done to the girl for these past seven years? Where had he been holding her? How had he been holding her hostage? Why couldn't Poe speak about it on the airways...for Rey' sake? She felt sick. Surely Ben hadn't- hadn't- but then Ben died years ago...decades ago actually. Kylo Ren was capable of anything. She couldn't believe that he'd actually force himself upon her or harm her in sexual manner...but then she didn't really know the man she used to call son did she? She wanted to protect Rey's decency and honor if that's what Poe was worried about...she balled her hands into fists and spoke through an unavoidably strained voice,

"Thank you, Poe. I will leave in a shuttle immediately, I should be there within three hours."

"General, that sounded way worse that it was...I mean it was...It's awful...but it wasn't...I mean..." Her best Pilot gave a frustrated huff interpreted as static and ended with, "I just want to protect Rey. You just need to be here to understand."

She frowned and pinched the bridge of her nose, "I'll be there Poe. Hae you made contact with the Tact-team?"

"Yes, confirmed," He replied following her lead and getting back to business.

"I will meet you there in three hours." She confirmed, "Thank you, Poe."

"Blue 4 confirmed." Came the clipped response. "Awaiting your arrival General." His end of the connection ended and she turned back to Ceel's channel.

"Ceel, I need a shuttle to-"

"Already awaiting you, General," The girl said over the comms, "And staff has already loaded your luggage, "They are awaiting your arrival for take off."

Leia gave a weak smile and stood up. "Thank you, Ceel. You are a miracle worker."

"That's what they tell me." Came the bright reply. "May the force be with you General."

"And you, Ceel." She responded in kind striding purposefully to the hangar.

 **Authors note #2: Nice going Poe, now you've got her thinking all wrong ;). Thanks again for reading, COMMENT please. Special thanks to Tripping55, , and crispy pig for your reviews. :)**

 **-D.**


	9. The General's Child

Poe practically fainted in relief as the General set foot on the Planet surface. Here was a woman who knew what she was doing, and he certainly had no idea what to do here. Rey had passed out as soon as he'd lifted her from the ship with a broken cry that terrified him. He didn't know how the force worked...but wasn't the legend that Padme Amidala had died of grief when Anikan Skywalker had left her for the dark side, when she'd lost him? Could Rey do that? Give up all will to live, even for her child's sake? He was just grateful to have another force user here, and the General specifically, she was more connected to this case than he, and would know how to solve it.

"General!" He rushed forward to meet her, "Rey's in the med pod, Ophi is running some tests...we don't know what's wrong with her, she just-"

"Poe," The General's tone was icy cold and steel hard, "I need to know, what did Kylo Ren do to Rey that you couldn't discuss over the airways."

Poe looked at her hesitantly. How was he supposed to put it into words? He knew what the General was thinking happened...He'd thought that too when he'd found Rey's clothes...but he'd seen them..he'd watched them... he'd felt Kylo Ren's terror for Rey and there son...and he knew the validity in it...how was he supposed to tell the General all that? How was he supposed to voice this unbelievable truth...tell the General maybe her son wasn't completely gone after all...nice to know...now that he was dead. The General took his silent staring the wrong way and stopped short, breaths suddenly coming in short huffs of fury at her child for atrocities against Rey, Poe didn't think ever happened.

"No, no it wasn't—He loved her, General!" He finally blurted out, and was propelled further by the baffled look the General was wearing. "And she loved him! And I didn't want the Resistance to know yet because- I know it doesn't sound believable...but I saw them with my own two eyes! They were hiding from the war, and the Resistance, and the First Order, and they've been there on that planet for Seven years! And the First Order killed him for it! It wasn't me General, I didn't kill Kylo Ren, the First Oder did! He died saving Rey, and their son,and Rey felt it through the force or something and now she can't move, won't even wake up and I don't know what that means, but I do know that he didn't hurt her because he died for her, General. I don't know how the Resistance will respond and I didn't' want them to turn on Rey and lynch her or something and I didn't know what to do, General! So I called you here. I was hoping you might have an idea how to handle it all." He finished lamely, panting breathlessly with nervous anxiety and eyeing the shocked General cautiously as she processed his avalanche of information.

"You're telling me..." Her voice trailed off and she looked at him wildly, in hope and disbelief, "My son died for Rey? You're telling me, he didn't- He saved her?"

"Yes, General," He nodded.

Tears flooded her worn eyes and she gave him a tight smile, "Thank you, Poe. Where is she?"

"Med pod," He responded,waiting for it all to sink in. She began walking in the direction of the tact-team's shuttle and he trailed behind her, waiting for it. Then there it was, she suddenly halted and stiffened, turning to look at him with wide eyes in realization,

"Did you say...Did you day _their son_?"

He nodded speechlessly. There it was.

General Leia Organa turned on her heel and practically ran to the ship, leaving a teary Poe in her wake.

The General's aching heart throbbed in her chest as she jogged up the exit ramp. The sniper, Uleis stopped her at the entrance,

"General, we should prepare you-" He started holding up large dark hands to slow her entrance.

"Where is she?" Leia's voice finally shook, "Where is Rey?"

"Ophi just finished running her tests, she's alright, but General-" He grabbed her shoulders to keep her from entering the medbay, a bold move that not many would make. "General, there's a complication..."

"What?" She impatiently glared up at the dark sniper.

"While she was running her tests, Ophi...Ophi found this in the body scans." He handed her a scan chart and a electronic image that stopped her broken heart in it's beat.

"Oh," She whispered...then she looked up at the sniper, "Does she know?"

"We don't know...it's really early on...she may not have noticed yet...but Poe said...he said Kylo Ren didn't..."

"He didn't." She shook her head firmly and pressed her lips together, tears burning her sockets. "Thank you, Uleis...thank you for warning me." She sighed and her shoulders slumped. And old woman entered the medbay to meet Rey for the first time in seven years. An old woman of grief, not a General of War.

Sai didn't last long with the pain thrumming on his Mama's side of the bond...he couldn't feel his Daddy at all anymore...He threw up three times on his flight, and had to take his helmet off...which he was guilty about, 'cause Daddy told him not to take it off when he was flying...but he threw up on the flight which lasted all of fifteen minutes before he crash landed on a neighboring planet...It was good for a crash landing...but it was still a crash and it hurt his empty stomach. As soon as he landed he unbuckled and curled into a ball, panting and sobbing. He had never been this scared before...'xcept maybe when he thought that the Sand Monster was real and it came to eat little kids...but Daddy had rocked him to sleep when he cried and kissed him and promised that even if there was a sand monster—there wasn't, he was old enough to know that now—he would take it down. When Sai had given a teary giggle, Daddy had raised his dark eyes brows and smirked down at him,

"You don't think I could?" And as he looked at his Daddy's face, crooked and goofy as it was sometimes, even with the soft smile on his mouth, he could see the seriousness in his Daddy's always sad eyes. He knew then that his Daddy could take on Ten billion Sand Monsters if they ever came after Sai. His Daddy was the strongest man in the universe. But now he couldn't feel him at all...he kept reaching out with his force like he was supposed to do when he needed to find his Mama or Daddy...but he threw up every time he tried to touch Mama and he couldn't find anything when he looked for Daddy...it just _hurt_...and then he'd throw up again. So he curled up in a ball and wrapped his long skinny arms around his knobby knees and cried himself to sleep. Scared, alone, and in pain. Was he ever going to see Mama and Daddy again? _As long as you have the force, you'll have your mother and I there as well._ That's what Daddy had said...so he tried just reaching with the force, not for anything in particular... just opening up his senses and letting the force wash over him in warm comforting waves...It was big, and frightening though...and he was still so alone in the vast expanse of the universe and the force was so large and impersonal and distant. He cried so hard he thought his brain was going to pop out of his eyes and his nose ran like an oil faucet. Just before he sobbed himself to sleep, he finally felt someone... a warmth... and old warmth...another person. And as his heavy eyelids slid closed and his breath slowed and hiccuped another force, a strong, powerful and yet immensely gentle force wrapped around him and began whispering sweet nothing's to him. He curled into it and closed his eyes, too tired to be cautious because he didn't know this force user. He was nice...Sai was pretty sure. So he cuddled up to the warmth of this Force-user's power and tucked his chin in.

 _"What's you're name, child?"_ Came a low rumbling man's voice...but it was a nice voice, he decided, full of light and warmth and comfort.

 _"S-Sai,"_ he hiccuped.

 _"Why are you crying, Sai?"_ the voice asked softly, stroking Sai's little force.

 _"I m-miss my D-daddy...I c-can't feel h-him anym-more..."_ He sighed and settled into sleep. He felt safe here. _"D-don't go away..."_ he whispered.

 _"I won't."_ The Light respond, and Sai finally drifted off to sleep. But he wasn't alone now.

 **Okay, here's another one, I'm so sorry it has been so difficult getting a new one out there! even just taking the five minutes to update my chapters is difficult with life being so crazy right now! I have several more chapters written that I could just post instead of continueing to try for this weekly thing...or I could just update one chapter at a time...what do you guys think? What should I do? Feedback is much appreciated :)**


	10. What Does This Mean?

**Author's note: okay everybody, we'll see how this goes...but I'm going to try to publish everything I've written so far in the next few days. It's going to be a lot, but I prefer bing-reading as a reader myself and I'm beginning to think I'll enjoy that more as an author as well. So feast and famine it must be. :) Here goes nothing; enjoy. :)**

 **\- D.**

Luke's eyes snapped open and he gasped, blinking tears from his eyes. He'd been meditating when Ben had died. Suddenly, unexpectedly...violently. The blinding pain and sudden nothingness broke Luke's soul and heavy guilt he always wore broke his shoulders down as well. The image of a skinny young boy with a smile as wide as the galaxy flashed before his minds eye, followed by images of that boy growing up, growing older, darker, more afraid. The terrified dark eyes of a fifteen year old boy who desperately warded off his Master's attacks, tripping over the young bodies of his victims... Tears pouring down his face as he begged him not to kill him, begged for forgiveness...and was offered none...The image of a tall dark figure, swathed in dark robes, snapping violently in the wind as he viciously cut down his victims with ease. Muscular frame striding through ranks as though he'd been born for war and death, and a dark mask hiding any remnants of the face he used to own... covering up any resemblance he may have had to that sobbing fifteen year old boy, afraid for his life and terrified of his crimes...

Luke bowed his head in shame and wished, not for the first or last time, that he could have saved the boy...that he had saved the boy. That he hadn't chased him away from redemption—but no. Ben had made his choice...Luke had made mistakes...but the ultimate choice was in Ben's hands. He folded his hands and pressed them to his mouth, a low moan escaping, only to be heard by his ears...he was alone here. Always alone...it was better this way. He reached for Leia, but quickly withdrew, thinking better of reaching for his twin. She was suffering as well no doubt, he would not burden her with his guilt and shame in their grief. He would reach to her after he'd collected himself. Instead, he sat back up and straightened his spine, closing his burning eyes and reaching into the force to feel it, to find comfort. The vast expanse of it rolled over him in waves, like warm water on a sunlight beach. He could feel the flower stretching up next to him and the power singing from the ocean beneath the cliff he meditated upon. Farther he reached, feeling until he felt the force through the entire planet...and the next one over...stretching across the galaxy and into the next, losing himself in the soft cadence of it and relaxing into the warmth.

But suddenly his attention was drawn to a flickering flaming tendril that trembled in the wind. There was immense power in this little vine...but it was merely a seedling, just barely old enough to stretch for the light. It trembled in unspeakable fear and grief, hinting at darkness though it's composition was of the light. Luke frowned and reached for it, this was out of place, there was something wrong with this little one. As he fingered it, he was surprised to feel it react and pull away slightly before leaning into him. This child, a boy he sensed, was acutely aware of his developing force...he'd never come across a child like this. There was the potential of great power glowing in his soul, but he was far to young to recognize or process it yet. Yet he was so comfortable with his little meager force he wielded, he reached with it as though he were reaching with his own little physical fingers and Luke's newfound grief roared it's wounded head again as he remembers how Ben's unique force had felt straining against his own.

He wrapped the little child up in his force and spread himself around him like a blanket, absorbing the child's fear and sorrow to deter it from infecting the light here. The boy sighed and the little vine wrapped itself around Luke and curled up into him.

 _"What is your name child?"_ He asked gently, forgetting his own grief to hold the child's. Her eas an infant who was completely alone in the universe.

 _"Sai."_ Came the response timidly, through quiet sobs.

Luke's heart ached at he stroked the little vine of power in his grasp and asked, " _Why are you crying Sai?"_

 _"I m-miss my D-daddy...I c-can't feel h-him anym-more..."_ Came the exhausted response. As the little boy said "Daddy" an image flashed before Luke's eye of a large man in a dirty little ship cradling the boy. He had a dark and dirty top knot at the back of his head and a long solemn face. Luke could tell it wasn't' simply the child's perspective that made this man look huge. He was large, and powerful both in physique and Force Power. Luke gasped as he felt the man's power flickering with vivid strength in a Dark and yet...strangely gentle manner. Luke wouldn't have recognized him if it weren't for his force. He had a thick scar that ran from his forehead to his jaw and he noticed, through the child's observation that even when he smiled softly at the boy, his dark gaze was heavy and sad.

 _"Even if there is a sand monster," the father's now deepened voice promised with a smile, "I'd take him down before he ever even came close to you."_

 _The boy, Sai giggled, looking up at his father. "What?" The man asked, smile splitting as wide as the galaxy. "You don't think I could?"_

 _The Boy thought to himself, as he paused and studied his father's face, that his father would take down ten billion sand monsters to protect him, and as Luke stared at the face of a man he'd never met before this moment, he agreed with the boys silent, unspoken belief._

 _"Don't go away."_ Sai whispered before drifting off to sleep.

" _I won't."_ Luke promised the precious child. Waiting until the child was fast asleep to let his pain and grief swell up around him like the ocean and unanswered questions overwhelm him,

 _"Ben? Yoda? Father?" He asked into the force, "I don't understand! What does this mean? I don't understand!"_

It was his father who responded, appearing before him in luminescence and kneeling before him to give a quiet smile and caress the face of the sleeping child in his arms.

 _"Father,"_ he asked, _How is this possible?"_

 _"You know how."_ Anakin answered, raising his gaze to meet Luke's. When Luke opened his mouth to deny the knowledge that evaded him Anakin sighed and placed his hand over Luke's forehead.

 _A terrified man stared back at him, Ben's eyes were wild with fear and dark, foreboding, terror as he set his son in the cock-pit of an x-wing. He took a deep breath to try and control his voice and said, "I love your mother, and she loves me, and we both love you more than you'll ever know. That's the most important thing you ever need to remember, Sai. Love is the strongest thing in the world, alright? No matter what anyone else tells you, whether they be a Jedi, or a general, or a Teacher or a friend, you remember that your father told you Love is the strongest thing in the galaxy, alright? Can you do that?"_

 _"Yes." Sai nodded, tears flooding his own green speckled eyes. "I love you, Daddy." His bottom lip trembled._

 _"I know." Ben nodded, jaw twitching in agitation. "I know buddy, I know." Then he cupped the little face in both his hands and looked the boy square in the face. "Those ships out there, they're coming because they want your mother and I. They can't know about you, alright? They can't know anything about you, ever. You're a secret, okay? Do you understand me?"_

 _"Yeah." Sai nodded, tears dribbling down his round cheeks. "But why?"_

 _"Because they're evil people. There are evil people every where Sai. On every side of a war. There is no good reason for war...but there are good reasons to fight, alright? No matter what happens to us after this you gotta make me a promise, okay?-No matter what kind of a man you grow up to be-" Ben's voice broke and he had to stop, shuddering with sobs he was trying so desperately to mask from his son's observant eye. "You remember what is right, and you chase after it. You might not always catch it but don't give up. Chase it! Remember that love is the strongest thing in the Galaxy and always to chase after what is good. Can you promise that?"_

 _"Yes." Sai whispered in return..._

 _Suddenly the scene changed ever so slightly and Luke watched in horror as little hands slapped against the window in terror as the little boy screamed,_

 _"No! Don't go, Daddy! Don't die!"_

 _"Go to the coordinates, Sai!" Ben yelled so he'd hear him through the glass, tears clouding his eyes, "Go to the coordinates, you hear me? I love you, son." he choked on his words and turned his back on Sai, running from the banging of little fists on a glass hood and the terrified screams of a little boy begging his father not to run into the face of certain death._

Luke moaned and pulled the child closer to his chest, cradling the last remnant of Ben there was left in the universe. He stared back at his father's immortal face, blurring the image in his tears as Anakin gave him a tired smile and replied,

 _"You know what this means, Luke."_

Luke nodded. It meant like like Darth Vader, Kylo Ren had eventually decided that his son was more precious than any power...his son was someone worth dying for. As Anakin faded away again and he coddled the small child in his arms, a broken smile wound it's way around his lips as Luke realized he didn't need to mourn his mistake...Ben had found the light on his own. Many lives had been paid for it, including Ben's own...but he had found something worth loving and dying for. Luke held the most precious person of Ben Solo's life and death in his arms.

R**********************************************************************************************************************************R

Finn moaned at twisted violently in the throes of a nightmare. Sweat painted his skin and mingled with his blood. Snow began to fall quietly, and he hardly even noticed-although he'd never seen snow in person before. It was soft and cold and pure white, but it flickered red as Kylo Ren approached him, saber humming, shoulders heaving in fury. Tears stung in Finn's eyes as he grit his teeth and roared at the monster. AS though he had a right to have fury! He'd killed Han, he might have killed Rey...he couldn't get the sharp crack her body had made as it was hurled into the tree out of his head. His heartbeat was going so fast it was more of a humm than a rhythm and it harmonized with hise opponent's lightsaber as he threw himself forward, hoping his anger and fury would be enough to take this beast down...he'd already been injured, perhaps if Finn hit him hard enough-

And then Kylo Ren was on top of him, shoving him into the unforgiving bark of the tree and pushing down, down, down and the heat was coming for him to eat him alive as he could only scream as it devoured the flesh of his shoulder-

Suddenly the snow was hot...and brown rather than white. The snow turned to sand and the trees were blown away to reveal the bare, massive slopes of dunes and a man was staring at him. Kylo Ren was staring at him, but he wasn't him...he was...a child? Kylo Ren was...different. Replacing the thick dark robes were year-old rags, his hair was mostly pulled away from his face in a knot at the top of his skull, he had a thick gnarled scar across his face-Rey put that there, his brain was able to flounder up and answer to that-, he was...pink? Yes, the sun was painting him a violent pink, and blisters bubbled across his shoulders as he shuffled the child-Finn?- into a pilot seat.

"Those ships out there," It was strange to hear his voice outside the mask. It was trembling...terrified...ships? What ships? Had the resistance found them? Was Finn a captive? Would they rescue him? Even if he'd left them? Kylo Ren continued, "they're coming because they want your mother and I. They can't know about you, alright? They can't know anything about you, ever. You're a secret, okay? Do you understand me?" Secret? Was this a dream? It was so real...so real...he could feel a much smaller heart than his own drilling insistently in it's tiny little ribcage. He could smell the fumes of the ship as it started up…

"That's what the timer is for. If your Mama's not here when you hit zero-" Kylo Ren choked on his own words,"You leave her here. Kay? You might have to leave both your mother and I here, but it's going to be okay, because you remember what I said?"

"That love is the strongest this in the galaxy?"The child's face twisted suspiciously. Finn wanted out of this dream, he wanted to scream and pound the living daylights out of the man in front of him for killing Rey. And Simultaneously he wanted to pull this little child into his arms and hide him from this monster...but the monster loved the child. He wanted out of this dream, it made no sense.

Time skipped again.

"Daddy," Daddy? Finn needed out. Needed out. What was his brain doing to him? " are you and Mama going to die?" The child asked with a both terrified and knowing look. Die? Who was going to kill them?

"The force is with you, Sai." Kylo Ren promised instead of answering...wait, someone was going to kill Kylo Ren? "And as long as the force is with you, you'll have your mother and I as well." he pressed a kiss to the child's forehead and Finn squirmed. He was going to be sick, violently, and wretchedly sick.

"No! Don't go, Daddy! Don't die!" Tiny hands beat the windshield...and everything happened so quickly...the timer ticked down, and he slingshotted out into space and the ships came after him, but Kylo crushed them and then he was hurtling into space and the coolant flap failed he'd been shot too many times, and he was spiraling out of control and vomiting, and trying to pull up in time to not flatten himself on the planet's surface, and pulled the emergency chute but it didn't work. And little hands worked magic and the ship crashed but didn't crush and he cried, and wretched and tried to get out but the hull was crunched closed and he was trapped, and there wasn't enough air and he was supposed to get to Luke, Luke would take care of him, but he was going to die here and he couldn't breathe-

Finn woke up gasping. Shudders shaking his entire frame, muscles twitching and seizing without command. He sat up and turned to face the room, certain that Kylo Ren was there...or the ships, coming for them, or...what was real? What was that? He considered vomiting for a moment but decided on a glass of water instead. He stood and swayed for a moment as his vision threatened to fail him altogether and leaned heavily against the wall. When his vision returned to his control he righted his pants as they were twisted around him from his thrashing. He didn't bother putting a shirt on as he staggered into the kitchen, tripping over an antique engine piece, and fumbling around the ice-box for a bottle. He straightened as he drank, metal pieces of his artificial spine clicking quietly as he did so. The resistance had replaced his severed spine with a robotic one and their best medics had repaired much of his Central Nervous system when Kylo Ren had halved it.

Finn glanced around the room at all the antiques and small appliances he had littering every horizontal space. He sighed, at this rate he'd never pay the resistance back. He wasn't skilled in much, and polishing and refurbishing antiques only made you so much when you were stuck on this side of the city. He might have to go back and serve the resistance for a few more years if he wanted to remove his debt. He couldn't go back though, he couldn't go back to those bases, those corridors those hangars where Rey had been. He couldn't. He thought that maybe a few years would take away some of the pain. It had been seven. Nothing had changed.

He took another swig of water and swished it around his mouth. Clicking the BroadCast screen on and leaning against the counter. If he'd become proficient in anything over the past seven years it was distracting himself. A brightly colored add flashed across the screen and he sipped at his water.

"Next up!" The announcer chattered excitedly, "We got the exclusive privilege of going live with our ProtectiveForce as they explore a recent crash landing! They are suiting up! We'll be back in ten minutes to investigate what this," The camera showed a picture of a crashed X-wing, half buried in debris, "Little ship is doing, on illegal burial grounds, and if we're lucky, we'll get an exclusive look at the sentencing as well." Eyebrows waggled excitedly and Finn's mouth ran dry.

It wasn't a dream. Well, it was a dream..but it wasn't just a dream. They buried trespassers on illegal burial grounds. Buried them alive. And if his dream was true...there was a kid in that shuttle. A kid who needed to get to Luke.

Finn dropped the bottle and grabbed his go bag and a sweatshirt as he flew out the door...ten minutes...ten minutes. He was five minutes away. He stuffed a blaster down the back of his waistband and pulled his shirt on as he ran down the rusted flights of stairs on his apartment building.

"Well, hello, baby!" One of the neighboring females called as he struggled with the article of clothing. "If you're looking for a place to hide out, you could-" She rolled her eyes as he ignored her and went back to her previous interest. He shouldered his go bag and set out in a trained run across through the flickering lights of tens-of-thousands of florescent bulbs and neon shades.

He had to get there in time. He had to reach that shuttle before the ProtectiveForce.

From across the galaxy Luke nodded in satisfaction. The man had taken the idea.

 _Don't worry, little one. Someone is coming for you. Someone is coming._

The little tendril of light hummed contentedly in his arms but did not wake.


	11. Like a Broken Kyber

Ophi was trying to calm an agitated Rey who was gripping a piece of paper with a child's drawing harshly against her chest, her hair was falling from it's ties in thick, bloody bunches and in a wild tangle over her wide and frightened eyes, trying to back off the med-table in disorientation when the general entered.

"Hey, Hey, you're okay Rey...Rey? That's your name, right? I'm glad to see you're awake...listen you're going to be okay, alright? You're okay."

"Who-who are you? Where am I?" She gasped, looking around her frantically, Leia fingered her force gently, trying to find the woman's consciousness and comfort her. Rey's force was a turbulence of pain and overwhelming agony the General quickly withdrew in pain.

"My name is Ophi," the agent responded with a charming smile despite her horned appearance. "I'm just trying to make sure you guys are alright, kay? You're on a ship called the Millennium, you've been rescued. You're okay, you're going to be alright." She reached out a hand to comfort the woman but Rey lurched off the table and scrambled back from her.

"No no no no no..." She was murmuring, "That's what he said... he said we were all going to be okay, he lied to me." She gasped, tears trailing down her cheeks..."he said he'd never...he'd lied to me! Ky..." She moaned and dropped to the ground, curling up into a little ball and sobbing. Well, it was better than paralysis, the General noted as she signaled Ophi to give the woman some space and approached her herself.

"Rey," She murmured, "Rey, can you look at me?" She knelt down in front of the young woman , wincing as her joints protested.

Rey's flooded hazel eyes rose to meet hers and suddenly she tore them away from Leia's gaze as though she'd been burned by it. She shook her head frantically and her hair fell in front of her face. Her whole frame shuddered with her sobs and Leia tried to hide her worry. This grief was endangering Rey's life. She could feel darkness and suffering wrapping it's tendrils around Rey's broken heart and tugging her soul to it's depths...The general didn't know the whole story...but by the way Rey's consciousness bled, she was fairly certain she was suffering the withdrawal of a force bond...a very strong one.

"Rey," She cupped either side of the woman's face gently and turned her head to make her look at her. Rey's eyes strained away from her, but she didn't' pull away otherwise. "Rey, sweet child, you must let m help you...you must let me ease this."

"No." Rey's head shook timidly from between the General's hands and she still refused to look at her. "No, I don't want you...I can't...not you...just leave me here...just let me-"

"keep reaching for him?" She asked probingly, Rey's hazel iris's snapped to meet hers. Ahhh, the General had guessed it, Rey had been force bonded with her son. She didn't know how...or why...but at least she knew now. "You can't, Rey. You're not going to find him." Tears slipped down her own cheeks as she stared the frightened youngling in the eye unflinchingly, "You need to stop reaching into that abyss, all it's going to do is keep hurting you. He's not there any more," Her voice was husky, "You can't bring him back."

"I want to go with him!" Rey wailed, pulling away from the General and curling in a tight ball, hugging herself and rocking back and forth. "I- just- want him-back." She gasped in pain, "I can't live..not without him..." The General couldn't mask the cry that tore itself from her chest. Not only had Kylo Ren loved this woman so much he gave his life for hers...She loved him in return so much she'd rather have died with him...this realization thrilled and broke her heart.

"You have to Rey!" She grabbed Rey by the shoulders and shook her gently. "You have to continue on! For you're son's sake!" Rey moaned,

"Sai!"

"And for the sake of the child you carry!" Leia finished and stared the shocked girl in the eye to watched her process it.

"The child...?" Rey breathed, staring in question at the General and then eyes widening as her hand flew to her stomach. "No..." She murmured again, "No, Ky! Ky! Don't- you can't-I can't-AHHHHH!" She doubled over screaming and the general felt oure unadulterated terror for the first time in years she dangled over the bring of allowing her force to kill her, she barely grasped at life.

"Rey! Rey! Listen to me!" She pulled the girl in against herself, pressing her head to her chest and refusing to let go of her, "Listen, you must let me help you, alright? You need to let me calm you...you could lose the child, alright!? You must let me help you."

Rey couldn't speak over the sobs and moans but she nodded her head against the General's chest and the general sighed in relief, reaching with her force to finger Rey's consciousness again, wincing at the searing pain emanating from it. "Rey, I'm going to enter the bond on your side, alright? I need to try and heal the ends before it kills you and your baby, alright? But that mean's I'm going to have to invade that bond...it's going to hurt, alright?" Again the trembling woman nodded without the words left to speak.

Leia closed her eyes and reached for the bond, so strong and vivid in youth, so broken and severed so short...so young. She rocked Rey in her arms as she felt the depth of her pain and loss and began to know a man she'd never met before...not a frightened boy named Ben, or a sadistic killer named Kylo Ren, but a passionate, protective lover named Ky, who died in the explosion of his only real home, wearing his son's painted shirt. She reached deeper and deeper, going past the most private and precious pieces of this bond, trying to brush past them to preserve their value for Rey and reached for the torn ends of the bond trying to reel them back in and tie Rey up before she bled out into the black abyss of emptiness and loss. As she began the bloody task of pulling the chords back into Rey's consciousness, when they had so long belonged in Ky's, she suddenly felt a slight tug back and dropped the chords with a gasp. Again she explored the chords and hesitantly wandered into the abyss to cautiously find where they lead...and found a faint, crackling hum on the other end, broken, red, spitting blood like rain of fire and furious love- like a broken Kyber crystal in a light saber- she squinted at the light and inched closer, realizing that the pain was emanating from it, that faint sparking. She gasped again and reached back to slam the door shut, keeping Rey closed off, and felt the girl finally go limp in her arms in unconsciousness, suddenly and inexplicably painless. But the pain was still _here_ , on the _othe_ r side of the bond, still overpowering and intoxicating, still too horrid to allow for consciousness, Leia swayed and collapsed on and ashen ground, equilibrium swirling around her like the cosmos. In horrid pain and agony she reached for the spitting red light with her healing touch and as soon as the fingered it, it came to life, screaming, writhing, wailing...but alive... blessedly and horridly alive. Her son was not, dead. Kylo Ren still lived.


	12. Careful What You Wish For

General Armitage Hux had picked up a less than desirable nervous twitch he needed to break; picking at his nails. It was uncivilized and disgustingly primitive...but it was a habit he'd developed unconsciously, nonetheless, under the strain of the past few years. Thus here he was, leaning against the counter in the med room they were holding Kylo Ren's bacta tank in and picking at his nails as he watched him. What was left of him.

The man's spine had been severed in five places, fractured his skull all the way around, broken nearly every rib in his chest cavity, he'd lost all four limbs, all skin and most of his muscles had been melted away and he'd been left a disgusting and disturbing mess of boiled tissue and shattered bones. You couldn't recognize an inch of him. The Supreme Leader wanted him anyways though. Figures. He always wanted Ren. So their best medical team had reassembled Phrik based skeletal limbs and were attempting to regrow cultured muscle and tissue over the bones, though they didn't have any skin to graft. They were working on a substitute. His spine had been lined in phrik and welded back together and their best med-droids had done extensive work on his nervous system.

Hux grit his teeth at the wastefulness. The amount of resources it had costed to acquire that amount of Phrik alone was more than that of a small star destroyer. All this to be spent on a traitor. Wasteful. When he usurped the Supreme Leader, this sort of irresponsible disregard for prices would not be tolerated. But he quickly rid his mind of the thought. He would not risk Snoke finding traitorous thoughts in his head. The price was too high. He'd waited patiently and bided his time his entire life, he would not throw away his plans now for petty reasons such as this.

He wouldn't allow his med team to administer any painkillers though, they wouldn't waste those if they had to waste everything else. If Ren wanted to blow himself up he could suffer the consequences. He glanced up from his nail picking to eye the the other man reproachfully. He'd always doubted the other man's intelligence. Emotions were such a detriment to intellect… but the fact that he'd managed to evade them for seven years was impressive. Hux himself had begun to question the competence of Snoke and the First Order as the hunt stretched on for years… he even began flippantly considering the absurd possibility that if FN2187 and Kylo Ren could leave the Order successfully...perhaps he had the capability as well...but then they'd found him. And there had been no hope of escape...and Hux had scoffed at his earlier fantasies. How could he have even considered the possibility. The First Order was Supreme, and he belonged to it. He'd been born into it, and now he led it...someday he'd lead it all...the entire galaxy. Why would he want to run from this destiny to live in a shack in the middle of the desert only to be found and torn to pieces.

" _You're not smart enough to learn on your own, boy."_ His father had told him, " _Learn from other's mistakes, instead."_

Kylo Ren had unimaginable power within his grasp and he'd thrown it away for a bed-mate. Hux smirked at the unconscious idiot in front of him. He could have had his pick of anyone in the universe if he'd stayed loyal-he was Snoke's _pet_ , he might have even been able to have _that_ girl, he certainly had the resources to keep her drugged and submissive. But he'd thrown it away because he lacked the intellect to be above his emotions, and now here he was, on the other side of the First Order Prisons, being patched up just in time to be ripped apart again for his shameful lack of foresight.

"Well," He muttered at the skinless mess of tissue and metal. "You always aspired to your grandfather's example. Guess you got your wish." He chuckled dryly to himself at the irony life held, and sauntered out of the med-bay, very much looking forward to punishing the Knight of Ren-and his own traitorous thoughts- for this betrayal.


	13. Healing

Kylo woke, burning alive, and deprived of the ability to scream. An oxygen mask was secured over his face and his eyes were melted shut. His eardrums were ruptured and filled his head with a faint thrumming. He couldn't see, couldn't hear, couldn't breath on his own and couldn't speak. The only sense he had remaining was his nervous system and he wished beyond everything that didn't work. Each individual nerve was burning down the the stem as a thick gel-probably Bacta-slid along his exposed body...it felt as though he'd been skinned alive...had he? Did he have skin? He couldn't tell...all he felt was searing agony and the pounding whirlwind of a massive concussion. He didn't know where he was...he didn't know if he was alone or surrounded...he didn't know if Rey got out with Dameron...or if Sai had made it to the coordinates. He knew nothing and could do nothing but drown in unspeakable agony and torment and he lay helpless, broken...and exposed.

Something warm brushed up against him and he started, terrified at his own lack of ability to identify what it was and where it came from...but then he felt it again… a gentle touch...and realized through his bleary confusion that it was through the force he felt it, and hesitantly reached back. He was desperate for any contact...any hint to where he was...the warmth reached for him and suddenly enveloped him and immediately his agony was cut off. He gasped as his mother's force surrounded him and she blocked out the fire that was burning him alive. Tears poured down his face and he was unable to move...even speak as he was overwhelmed by her healing force as she began to slowly knit his skin together again. He cried out as it pulled at exposed nerves and tissue and shook in her arms as she slowly, methodically, shut down his ability to use his nervous system at all. Leaving him painless, and senseless, falling helplessly into a deep sleep, saturated in confusion and disbelief...she felt far away...was he with the resistance or the First Order? Was she here or only in the Force? Was he dead? He didn't think so… Why was she healing him? Didn't she hate him? He hoped she did...as he sunk into her healing induced coma, he hoped for all he had left she hated him. She needed to. She had to. He wanted her to.

R-***************-R

Leia stumbled into the cockpit, six hours later to collapse in the co-pilot's seat. Rey was still sleeping soundly and Ky was resting as well...for now. It was odd to call him that...she'd named her baby Ben...but he wasn't Ben anymore... Feeling his mind had proven that, if anything at all. Her chest ached, as though all flesh was being torn away from the inside of her rib cage as she remembered the pain that was tearing the man to pieces. The First Order was rebuilding him though...she didn't know why... The possibilities were terrifying. She didn't think she wanted to know what their Supreme Leader had planned for him that would explain going to such great lengths to heal him...there was hardly anything left to heal. She was relieved he wasn't dead, though. This anxious waiting, to see if her son would return to her someday...it wasn't over—which meant there was still hope.

When she'd found him and opened up the bond through Rey...she'd been so afraid he'd lost his mind to the pain.. It was a miracle he hadn't...she'd nearly lost consciousness all together when she'd stepped foot in his mind...but he was always strong. Always. He'd pulled away from her in a way that tugged at her already broken heart when she'd first touched him, she'd sensed his fear...his helplessness...his knowledge that he was completely defenseless against her... But then he'd reached back hesitantly and at his force cautiously brushed hers back she realized he was senseless...alone in every sense of the word and completely and totally helpless. So she'd been especially gentle as she wrapped him up in her power for the first time in twenty-one years and beat back the pain that was consuming him. Oh how her heart had longed for that moment for years, to cradle him in her arms and soothe the dark terrors of his mind...she never should have stopped in the first place.

As she began to explore the extent of his condition she was awed simply by the fact that he was still alive. He was so...broken. There was not much she could do here. Finally she settled on his skin...that was something she might be able to at least begin the repair of. Being his mother...she well knew the make up of his body...but this was a whole different level than repairing scraped knees or a black eye. This was re-knitting him together in a surrogate womb. She didn't have any training for this extensive work...Luke hadn't found much on Force healing for her to research...really he was only able to tell her she had it and it could be used to heal force and body. But no one had told her womb how to stitch a child together either, so she closed her eyes and simply reacted to the force and directed her through feel...adjusting as she went.

Ky let out a broken cry and shuddered in her arms and she stubbornly continued, insistently searching for some method to ease his pain. Then she thought of his pain receptors and began searching his Central nervous, carefully tracing each nerve to it's head and numbing it, shutting the entire system down save for the vitals. It was his last remaining sense...but this was temporary—and she couldn't leave him in pain like that. She wouldn't. Slowly he went limp in her arms, paralyzed as well now, his thoughts a stormy mess of confusion and disbelief. He didn't know where he was, or why he was there...didn't know where his family was...didn't know why or how Leia had found him.

"They're safe," She whispered to him, "You're family is safe."

But he couldn't hear her. Couldn't see her, now he couldn't feel her either...but for their force contact. As he faded into a coma she could here his bewildered thoughts. He wondered at how she could be healing him...after...after everything. She smiled at his lack of understanding. Would he ever give up the chance to save his own son? Even if that son had turned on him? Even if that son had kill—not his son. He wouldn't turn on his precious baby he'd given up everything to save...even the guarantee of his wife's life. He would always long to protect his son. And even as her heart ached as she felt her son's hope that she hated him...she smiled at his misunderstanding. She could never... _Never_ truly hate her baby. Never.

Now she curled up in the cock-pilot seat of the Millennium Falcon the way she used to when Ben was a boy and let tears coated her worn cheeks as she sat staring at the pilot seat, Han used to occupy to proudly. Now it was just her. She was alone. So alone. And she was tired.

She heard a soft moan behind her and turned a bit to see Chewi watching her with large lonely eyes himself.

"Hey there, you big walking carpet." She gave him a teary smile.

He grunted in reply and she gave a wet laugh, "Well he'd just have to get over me soaking his ship in tears."

Chewie chortled in a heavy chuckle himself and she opened her arms up from where she sat, "Come here and make yourself useful."

He moaned in response and came over to hold her in his mess of warm fur and massive paws. She wrapped her arms around him and he ran a heavy paw over her head. She gave a sigh and closed her eyes, breaking the silence only once to whisper,

"I miss them, Chewie. I miss them so much."

Chewie gave a quiet groan in response as Leia herself drifted off to sleep, passing into oblivion only after her children were safely resting in theirs.


	14. Broken Things Are Dangerous

When Ophi stopped by the kitchen to grab a beer before braving the social atmosphere of the lounge, she wasn't surprised to find Uleis already in there, leaning against the counter, head resting against the cabinets, eyes closed and nursing a half-empty bottle himself.

"Hey," She said quietly, to warn him of her presence, before flipping the light on. His eyes flickered open and he eyed her lazily, as though he _wasn't_ aware of every motion she was taking and _wasn't_ constantly calculating the odds of his survival rate if she turned on him. His last team turned on him. They turned out to be First Order sympathizers and had turned on him, tried to kill him. He'd killed them all...all but one, the pilot—his father, got away. Teams—even tact-teams—are family units. There's no one in the entire Resistance that knows you or trusts you like your team does. To have them turn on you...to have them try to kill you, knowing all your weaknesses...well, he didn't come out unscathed. "Drinking alone in the dark? That can't be a healthy habit."

He gave her a dark grin, he'd had too much. He never threw smiles away like that. "I wouldn't mind drinking with someone else in the dark." He smirked at her and took another long sip. Defiantly drunk. So much for avoiding socialization.

"Toss me a beer, will you?" She asked coolly, trying to maintain a friendly face and still be clear enough to warn the drunkard off. She was not interested.

He gave a heavy sigh and a mocking smirk and leaned down to pull open from the chill chest and flick it at her haphazardly, his coordination and grace even when drunk unnerved her like it did every time this happened. She snatched it out of the air, making sure he noticed how quick her own reflexes were...she felt bad for the man, she really did. But any person who could turn and protect themselves from the family they thought loved them—not only that, but then turn around and kill them—the only people in the world they loved...that person could not be trustworthy. It was impressive, and admiral, yes...but it also made him a dangerous breed of human...a survivor, and a killer.

She gave him a grateful nod for the beer and snapped the cap off with one of her horns casual, without taking her eyes off him.

"You want to come join me to go drink with the team?" She jerked her head in the direction of the door invitingly.

He rolled his eyes and sipped on the beer again. She narrowed her eyes at him, "How many have you had?"

"Just two," He smirked again.

"That's not beer." She stated, pursing her lips reproachfully.

"So?" He sneered.

"I don't think it's wise to have our sniper drunk when we're protecting the two most wanted women in the galaxies." She growled back.

His smirk sobered but he still snapped back, "I know my own limits, Zabraak."

She raised her left eyebrow in disbelief and turned on him to go visit the team.

"Ophi," He stopper her glanced over her shoulder again, "I- I really wanted this one. I really wanted to take him out."

She turned to stare him in the eye and told him, "Yeah, well he got blown up or something, so consider him taken out if it makes you feel any better." She turned again only to be stopped by a quieter,

"Ophi...is she really...is Rey really pregnant?"

"Yes, Ulies." She sighed.

He swore in response. And gripped the bottle in a way that warned he was just barely containing the urge to crush it his grip."I-I don't understand the world sometimes." He mumbled quietly.

"Yeah..." She softly agreed, taking a thoughtful sip of the beer and frowning quietly at the floor. She didn't understand the world either. She didn't understand why her mother sold her to a Empirical Defect for an engine part at two years old...she didn't understand why she grew to love that man like a father, or why he took his own life five years ago. She didn't understand why the General still loved her son...she didn't understand why Kylo Ren had killed his own father only to die saving Rey. She didn't understand why the Hope of the Resistance betrayed them to run away with their worst nightmare...She didn't understand how Rey could be pregnant, without have being raped...but she was and she loved the father of her child. He had done nothing to harm her. She didn't understand...but it was nonetheless true. "Are you sure you don't want to join-" She glanced up from her thoughtful floor staring only to stop as she realized, the sniper was gone. It was as though he vaporized...No one snuk away from her. She didn't miss any noise or movement. And yet all that was left where he'd been leaning against the counter was his half-full bottle of something much stronger than beer. He'd left it though, rather than finishing it, and the warm feeling that kindled in her belly at knowing he'd heeded her warning and wanted to be capable of defending the team and their cargo still...it was neutralized by the fact that that human was capable of much more than defending, and no one...no one...had ever slipped past Ophi's observation before.

She stared at the counter for a few more moments, calculating the threat he posed and eventually turned away, not finding and end to the list of ways he was dangerous to her team. Her family. When she entered the lounge, Blu and his sister Abee—the techies—instantly turned on her to hound her for her support on either side of the argument they were currently having, Rou was trying to make peace between the twins and Drak had his boots set up on the table, laughing at the heated debate. He grinned at her and motioned her over to sit by him, but there wasn't enough room so she perched on his knee, offering her bits of opinion—just enough to keep the fires burning—in between sips of her beer. She laughed with Drak, and teased the twins mercilessly, only occasionally siding with the peace making Rou if the twins got too carried away and began to borderline actually offend each other. As she perched on Drak's knee and threw jabs at the twins or elbowed Rou, she felt home again, like she always did...and yet she couldn't forget the haunted look of the dark sniper...who'd been betrayed by his family...only to kill them in order to survive. It was a small shadow in the corner of her mind...but one she couldn't forget.


	15. Lonely Pawns

When Hux entered his chambers that evening he was beyond exhausted. The strike on Kylo Ren had taken weeks of intricate planning and arguing with the inner council to determine how the best route of attack would go...Snoke had been clear he'd wanted the Knight alive, but despite Hux's best warnings to the council against a brute force attack they'd opted for it anyways, knowing nothing else. Hux had warned them Kylo Ren was far too dangerous, it wouldn't be worth the soldiers they'd have to sacrifice, besides the point he figured Ren would be too smart to be taken alive. He'd never admired the other man's intelligence—it was so clouded with emotion—but he knew to recognize and even at times respect it. Ren would know what they would do to him if they took him alive and Hux knew the other man was fully capable of inflicting harm upon himself without hardly blinking...If Snoke wanted Kylo Ren alive, he'd figured the only way they'd catch him was through espionage and trickery... unfortunately he'd been outvoted on the council seven to one. Now the knight was barely being he;d together with a few rusty wires worth a small fleet and Snoke was holding him responsible for the man's condition. His mind ached and throbbed as he entered the key code, having to start over three times because his hands shook so badly and his numb brain drifted here and there in pain. Snoke had punished him greatly for this "failure" and yet had found no hint of a treasonous thought in his head. The old creature was powerful and deadly...but a blind fool. He was still completely clueless as to Hux's true intentions, and he would remain that way until Hux's full plan had the opportunity to come to fruition. Finally the door opened and he stumbled into his cold, dark chambers as though drunk, flipping on just a few sterile florescent lights to expose the bare nature of his habitat. He swore as the light bit into his eyes like a serpent and threw an arm over his eyes. When he finally took it down to glare at the room he was startled to find he wasn't alone.

A dark woman stood by his bed watching him with large dark frightened eyes that reminded him a little bit of a doe's. Some trophy to mount on your wall, his thoughts sneered in his head. She had thick, curly dark hair that sat on her skull like a black cloud of chaos and it irritated him, why didn't she shave it if it insisted on growing out from her head like that? She was here for a rather obvious purpose judging by her anklet and wist manacles disguised as dainty ornaments and her scanty dress conduct. She wore only what was absolutely necessary and metal trinkets and beads threaded her slender dark frame in a way that was supposed to be enticing...but he was tired and his brain was raw and bleeding and he couldn't help but squint against the light so he simply glared at her. He didn't want a female tonight, he was too tired—in fact when had he ever ordered a female? He had no interest in one, such activities divided his attention from being wholly in his work and would take away precious hours from his study time.

Wide doe-like eyes tracked his movements as he stumbled across the room, tearing his tie off as he fell back into his chair, still glaring at her. He hated people. He hated expectations and assumptions. He hated men and women. He hated speaking and listening. He hated pain, and social thoughtfulness. He hated people and this one, was no exception. He hated how she stared at him as he viciously tore his boots off and shrugged his jacket off. He hated how her hair billowed out rather than down. He hated how her full lips were parted ever so slightly in a startled, frightened way and hated how graceful and beautiful the lines that trimmed her body were. He hated that she was here, and hated her.

Finally he had a bit more mobility and felt as though he could breathe. He stumbled to his feet again and swayed dangerously as his vision clouded over and the agony of Snoke's mind ravaging scraped along the interior of his skull again. His knuckles went white as he gripped the arm of the chair for a moment and he grit his teeth, sending a muscle jumping along his jawline as his vision cleared and he saw the female was still watching him with those large-doe like eyes. Witness to his vulnerability. Not for the first time, he considered killing her. It might feel good, killing again...it'd been a while. He hadn't made up his mind. He started stalking over to the bathroom, veering a little bit closer to her than necessary just to watch her quake. It felt good to be on the other side of the threatening. It felt good to be dangerous again. She was about the same height as him, long and slender boned—tall for a woman—but she shrunk back from him as he approached to pass her. Suddenly, just before he turned to go to the bathroom instead of at her, she withdrew her hands from behind her back and he was suddenly looking down the barrel of a blaster.

Rage flared in his chest. Her hands were trembling as she held the gun, and she didn't have any of the right safeties pulled to allow her to actually fire it at him, but he felt fury begin in his gut and slowly boiling in his veins. A bed-maid. A lowly, worthless, bed-slave dared threaten him. Had the audacity to pull a weapon on him. He was tired, and in pain, and enraged—he was sick of being taking advantage of. In a sudden, uncharacteristic, loss of self control he let his temper get the better of him and he viciously disarmed her and threw her on the bed, pinning her body down with his. She struggled for a few moments beneath him and he crushed her. A small broken gasp tore itself from her mouth and she finally went limp from under him, staring up into his cold, furious eyes in horror. She could do nothing to stop him from doing whatever he pleased to her and the power that he felt sung in his bones. He was so angry and furious and needed to have the upper hand again. Maybe he did need this after all.

Their breaths mixed in the air, wet and hot against each other's faces and tears coated her cheeks, though she didn't make a noise and hardly blinked at all. If she had made audible cries, Hux thought he might have killed her. If she had avoided his gaze he might have forced himself upon her. But she did nether, wept silently, trembling beneath him and staring straight back into his eyes in terror laced with a fury to match his own. Dark doe-like eyes glared back at him with the hate spawned by the injustice of the situation. The same hate his mother looked at him with for the first five years of his life, as he was living proof of the horrors committed her. Instantly the fury and the rage and the power left him empty as he stared back at a younger, darker face of a woman much like his mother...and he gave a heavy sigh and rolled off her, to lie beside her and stare at the ceiling instead of continuing his enraged rampage. He was an exhausted and empty shell and the pain in his skull returned full-force. They lay like that for a few long minutes, side by side, staring up at the ceiling to avoid looking at each other. His breaths came in heaves as he blinked the stars from his eyes and hers came in little pants, tiny and broken. Finally he turned his head to look at her. She hadn't curled into a protective ball like he thought she might, instead she remained on her back, where he'd thrown her, long arms and legs still sprawled where he'd pinned them, motionless but for the shallow rising and falling of her breast as she cried silently. Her dark face—her skin was darker than he'd ever seen before, nearly inky black, with rich hints of brown and red and almost blue or purple as the light hit it...she looked like a galaxy—glistened in those quiet tears and he might have felt a slight bit of pity had it not been for the fact that she was nothing to him and nothing to the world. He also was nothing. Simply brief meaningless lives flashing through time like shooting stars only to evaporate. Two lonely stars who happened to pace each other in their flight once. They would not remember each other after this night. Neither of them were anything other than nothing.

Finally he sighed again and asked her, "What is your name, woman?"

Her swollen lips opened and closed once, dark eyes still staring forward, sightless. Again she opened her mouth and this time was able to force speech from it. Her voice was low and rich, soft and a slight bit huskier than he'd imagined, "Ahlai." She murmured quietly, as though she might break his restraint if she spoke to loudly.

He returned to staring at the ceiling and let the name roll around his numb mind a bit. It was a beautiful name...rich and dark like her. It fell from her lips like a cool breeze tainted by a slightly sad note hinting at it's melancholy meaning: sorrowing. His mind wandered to the faint memories he had of his mother... her face twisted in pain as she wailed. The way her entire frame would wither when his father arrived and wouldn't straighten until he left again. Even the harsh slaps and vocal hatred for him. Nothing to her. Nothing but the product of violence and abuse. He almost gave a bitter laugh—her weak slaps and cruel words had broken much more of his child-soul than anything his father had done to him. He'd never had hope that his father could love him. Never sought after it. But his mother...she was a kind woman...he had figured with a child's logic that if she could find it in herself to love everyone else despite what his father had done to her...perhaps she might find some little scrap for him as well. Just a little bit. But she was too broken by that point. It wasn't her fault...he knew it was his own...somehow...if he'd never been born then maybe she—Hux snapped his eyes closed and stopped thinking. He took one deep breath and opened them again to view the world emotionless again. He needed something to do with his mind to keep from falling back on these emotions. Emotions could only hurt you. He needed something—anything—a distraction...something to keep his mind sharp.

"Do you play chess?" He asked the ceiling.

The dark figure next to him shifted finally, ever so slightly, and she hesitantly turned her cloud topped head to stare at his profile in shock.

"Wh-what?" She whispered.

"Do you know how to play chess, Ahlai?" He asked again without looking at her.

"Yes..." She whispered back.

"Good." he heaved himself up off the bed and stumbled back over to the table, pulling out his set and plugging the monitor in. She gingerly sat up from where she lay and watched him in bafflement. "Dark or light?" He finally met her confused gaze.

She licked her lips with a brilliant pink tongue and finally blinked. "Dark." She decided.

"Good." He repeated, "My move first." He kicked the chair across from him a little bit away from the table...it was the best invitation she was going to get. He moved his first pawn and glanced up at her again, "Your move."

Slowly she rose, metal trinkets and beads tinkling as they brushed her skin as she moved to come and hesitantly sit across from him, large dark eyes flickering from him to the board and then back to him again. He leaned back in his chair and gestured to the board again. A thin dark hand rose to gently tap one of the pawns forward with a long slender finger.

And thus it began.


	16. Senseless

**Author's Note:**

 **Aaaannnd I'm Back! with more pain...all the pain. The next chapter is funnier, I promise...well...sort of... Sorry for the crazy long break between updates! Life got crazy and I totally hit writer's block! Not just with this story, but, all of them! At once! So I am now shirking my responsibilities to attempt at getting something on the page. I'm idea constipated. Gotta get this stuff out!**

 **Just a note, I've been criticized in the last couple of months for my Dicken's length paragraphs and have overwhelmed a few of you. So sorry! Glad that was brought to my attention. I love Dickens, but Fanfiction is not Dickens, nor should it be. So I tried to keep these paragraphs shorter for y'all. What do you think? Likey? No-likey?**

 **Okay, here it comes. Ready to be emotionally exhausted? Coming right up, a D. - Dump. My specialty. Love you all my valiant and patient readers, those few who are up to sticking with me!**

 **-D.**

After he'd mostly healed, Ky had been ripped from the bacta tank and beaten...he was still blind and deaf, a fact his captor's found great delight in. He was stripped naked and thrown between multiple assailants, his only sense bombarded by fists and boots, every now and again broken up so they could roughly drag him forward and shove his head beneath the water and drown him only to pull him out just before the end.

At first he tried defending himself, throwing weak blows back at the general direction he thought his attackers were in, but wound up curling into a protective ball to protect his vitals and trying to keep his cries to a minimal. He still didn't know if he was with the Resistance or First Order...it didn't really matter at this point, he was weak and defenseless...helpless...knowing who they were wouldn't change anything. They were all enemies. He hoped Rey got out.

By the time they finished he could no longer lift himself up so they dragged him across the floor and dumped him in what he had to assume was a cell. He had no idea. It was freezing cold and blood and other cold liquids felt frozen on his bare skin and he was shaking uncontrollably in the cold and pain. He curled in on himself and tried to steady his breathing he could feel hiccuping in his chest.

He couldn't even tell if his weeping was audible, he was trapped and alone in his head connected to the world only by his sense of pain. He was thankful to his mother for his skin though. At least he had that layer of defense against his assailants and the cold...that was something. He wondered where Sai was and whether he was to the coordinates...he didn't know how long it had been...it could have been hours...or months...he had no concept of time; only pain.

He missed his son, however long it had been. He missed his little hands wrapping around the back of his neck and his little wet kisses splattering down across his face. He missed his shrill giggle and his excited chatter...so bright for his age...and how his wide brown eyes would light up with the same green hints that Rey's would...

A groan rattle his chest as he pictured Rey's face, her smile, her snarl, her grin and glare; her face and frame had become more familiar to him than his own. He tightened his arms around his chest and choked on tears as he remembered her terror...and horror as he threw her to the top of the dune...as he abandoned her. She probably thought he was dead...just as well...he figured...he would be soon.

His chest ached for his wife and he instinctively reached for her force, her solace, her light... shock hit him like a brick wall as he found a vacancy there...he desperately reached and grasped at everything he could...but it was gone. There was a gaping wound there, their bond had been torn and fractured. He could feel himself beginning to hyperventilate and his head lighten and spin as panic set in. He couldn't find her...he couldn't feel her...couldn't sense her.

Had he lost her? Had Poe been shot down? Was the Resistance executing her...for her relation to him? Did the First Order kill her anyways? Where was she?

He'd never been alone in his own head before...as a child there had always been his mother—sometimes his uncle—as an apprentice and Knight of Ren there'd always been Snoke...that overpowering strangling dark and then he'd had that little ray of sunlight when Rey had accidentally bonded herself to him years ago. That little ray had eventually grown until half of his mind was always hers and half of hers was always his. There in the back...yes there in that cold dark vacancy...his wife...his partner...his precious mate used to curl up and rest.

Her thoughts and emotions, so warm and powerful, used to lap over his mind and comfort him or find comfort in him. He felt as though he'd been skinned alive again. She was gone...gone...he rolled over and vomited violently, the only thing passing though his lips was molten hot bile to mix with his tears. Moans rumbled in his chest...silent one's...leastwise silent to him and he pressed his forehead to a cold floor. He'd never felt so alone in his entire life. His heart cried for his baby he could no longer touch and his mate he no longer had...yet his body suffered on...he'd been willing to die for them if only so they could live. How was it he'd survived only to lose them anyways.

Death was a vicious foe one he longed to find rest on it's blade now. Anything to end this agony...this all consuming, overwhelming agony of being torn in two, no three...alone.


	17. Useful Alliances

Maz had seen many things in her millennium reign, and she wished she could say she'd never seen evil like the First Order. And while it was true she'd never been affected by other evils like she'd been this one... if she'd learned anything over the past thousand years it was that evil was evil no matter how greatly or insignificantly it affected one individual.

The First Order had found her and taken her captive several months ago—leastwise she was assuming it had been a few months—to torture and break her for aiding in the escape of those refugee force users...she hadn't known what the First Order wanted with them, but it hadn't mattered. They were but children to her, the oldest only in her eighties and the youngest but a mere handful of months.

She may have had her realm brought down to it's knees and brought to ruins, she may have had many of her followers scattered like dust in the wind, but Maz Kanata had had more that a thousand trips around her sun and knew a thing or two more than the the First Order about the deepest darkest hiding spots in the galaxy. She hadn't hesitated in hiding those children. She didn't regret it now—though she'd be willing to regret a whole lot more if they'd give her a blanket.

It was freezing here in this cell. They knew how she hated the cold...the coldest it ever got on Takodona was 40 degrees Fahrenheit and she certainly didn't handle anything colder. She had huddled up in her corner after they'd finished with her the last time and wrapped her thin arms about her in vain attempt to hold in non-existent body heat. She hadn't moved since. It was a futile attempt, she didn't have enough mass to keep herself warm.

No one had entered or left for three days now and she knew something had drawn the attention of the First Order. Certainly they grew bored of the Pirate Queen's half-truths that always led them around in circles no matter what they did to her, but that certainly wasn't a good reason to neglect a prisoner like herself. She was almost recovered now and would promise to be even more difficult than before for them, these foolish children. It was when they threw another Force Sensitive in her cell with her.

She knew he must be Force Sensitive because they wouldn't throw anyone else in here. The cell was made of an ancient stone, she had a feeling was from an old Sith Temple's ruins and it was infuriatingly preventing her from accessing her force. The only reason they would throw this human man in here was to prevent him from using force. She didn't have any other cell mates, though the frozen cell was rather large, to allow for holding many force-users at once.

The man was large and strong, but horrifically scarred and beaten. He had been stripped, beaten and drowned judging by the way he was still gasping and dripping wet. Dark bruises were already discoloring his bare frame and many blow wounds were swelling and splitting. Old lash marks from a whips tail mottled his bare back and wire thin white scars littered his torso and arms. Fire scars appeared here and there as though he'd been healed from a blast, but only partially, she couldn't tell if all his fingers and toes were attached still, but he had no ears, apparently torn from his hairless skull. He shook uncontrollably and curled in on himself moaning quietly. His back was to her as he began to weep softly and her old and weathered heart ached for the child...he couldn't be even a half a century old yet.

He must be important to the First Oder though. They didn't usually keep the force users to torture...Snoke had other—more ominous—purposes for them usually.

"How long have you been here, young man?" She chattered from her position curled up in the corner. He didn't answer, only let a low groan rattle his chest as he continued his quiet weeping. Not long then. She figured, if he still had the strength to cry and feel pain and shame for his exposed and broken state. After several days they would give him his clothes back, she assured him.

But he gave her no indication that he was even listening to her. She wondered if there had been internal damage to his ears as well, perhaps he could not hear her. Grudgingly she uncurled herself and shivered over to him. She intended to make contact if only to try and strike up a bond of mutual need. Humans—especially males—were warm. And she fully intended to take advantage of that fact. She grudgingly took off her thin shawl deciding to offer it to him as a means to regain his decency. His warmth would offer more to her than the shawl anyways and if a thousand years of smuggling had taught her anything, it was when you give first others are usually more willing to give in return.

"Do you have a name, young man?" She croaked, stepping over his massive feet and crouching down on the other side of him. He was covering his face with large hands as he cried and she counted five fingers on each one—the average for humans. He didn't respond and she was beginning to become impatient. She was a patient creature, but she had taken her shawl off for him and he wasn't taking it though she was holding it inches from his face and he wasn't responding when she spoke directly to him. If he was deaf he might as well use his eyes. "It is considered polite in nearly every system to respond when spoken to." She snapped.

Finally he responded by going very still. So still, she thought for one frightening moment that he had died, but after a few moments he rolled over, almost crushing her as she scuttled out of the way, and began to vomit stomach bile onto the floor. Her heart fluttered uncomfortably in her chest as the fact that his eyes were burnt and scarred over completely was a simple observation compared with her sudden recognition of him.

"Ben Solo?!" She gasped, he didn't respond, simply gave another moan and bent down to press his forehead to the ground, bare frame shuddering in sobs and tears pooling with the bile. Anger and pity swarmed her veins and she hardly felt the cold anymore. "What happened to you!" He was blind and deaf though and probably had no idea she was even there. She stared in silent fury at Han's murderer and in quiet pity for his son.

A thousand years had also taught her people change each and every moment that they live is another moment that they choose, no one is ever truly too far gone...besides, she had it from a less than reliable source that Ben had fled the First Order...of course there was no proof of that, so she'd not informed Leia of the rumor among the smugglers...best not meddle in another person's business without reasonable and defensible cause. Unless of course you are to meddle without being found out, there are many more exceptions there.

So gently she reached out with her old withered hand and brushed his shoulder. He started and scrambled away from her, whited out eyes turning uselessly in their sockets as he tried to locate her, whoever she was. Again she reached out, but this time for his hand and gently touched his fingers. Again he pulled away, frightened and timid, though he'd ceased his weeping. This time, however, he finally hesitantly reached back and brushed her hand in return. She smiled and let him explore her tiny hand and thin wrist, let him find comfort in how small and seemingly defenseless she was before offering the shawl again by placing it on his hand to let him explore that as well. He frowned, unsure as to what it was and she reached forward and tapped his hip to remind him he was without clothes. Sightless eyes widened and then drooped ashamedly and bashfully as he accepted the single garment and tied it about his waist.

"Thhhhhank thank you." He managed softly, though without the ability to hear his own voice he was toneless and almost inaudible.

She patted his hand and scuttled in closer. It didn't come without a price. She'd been hoping for a possible friend to keep her warm, but she supposed Ben Solo would have to do. She wrapped her shaking arms about his torso to let him know what she wanted and then curled up beneath him, shivering. He hesitated for a moment, and a fresh wave of those unexplainable tears coated his face, but eventually he curled down around her and wrapped his large arms gently around her, keeping her warm.

"Well, Ben Solo." She told him though he couldn't hear her. "Perhaps you haven't run out of uses yet."


	18. Speaking the Unspoken

It had been two weeks since Rey had lost everything. Two weeks since she thought Ky had perished, two weeks since Poe had found her and Leia had told her Ky was not dead—worse, being held and tortured by the First Order for his betrayal of them...for her...—and two weeks since she'd learned she was carrying their second child.

Nausea had already set in and it was worse with this one. She spent a good fourth of her days bending over a toilet or garbage chute and emptying the contents of her stomach into it. She burned for her husband. Longing aching in her bones...with Sai he'd been with her nearly every moment after conception...in fact he'd been with her every moment before as well...she was so accustomed to having him there now, behind her, towering over her in his quiet strength.

His arms were always there to catch her or hold her or rock her, face always there to ground her, to worry over her, to smile at her...as though she was the most beautiful creation in the entire galaxy. He was there for those long months of pregnancy...where they were both lost and confused...unsure of what to expect or watch for... but certain that what ever came of it...they would face it together.

He'd delivered Sai as she birthed him, and handed her most precious possession to her wrapped up in a bloody cloth they'd worked so hard to make clean before. He'd collapsed on the bed next to her after it all, as she drew him down to her for fear he was going to faint after the stress of it all and he had held both her and her child to him as she nursed for the first time and fell asleep in his arms.

He'd cared for her in the aftermath, when that infection had set in and weakened her, and had done the work of two for nearly an entire year as she recovered and Sai grew. Ky had been the one to carry Sai as they worked, strapping their infant to his chest and protecting him as they worked, never growing tired until the last moments of the day when he'd fall onto the bed fully clothed and booted, asleep before his body hit the bed.

There were so many nights that she pulled his boots and outer robes off him whilst he slept and heaved his legs up on the bed before crawling over him and curling around their baby boy before wrapping her legs through his and pressing her forehead to his shoulder. He'd been there for every moment... now he was absent entirely; physically and in force. It had been two weeks since she'd felt her husband or his force and though she was surrounded by more people than she'd been in seven years...she still felt isolated and alone with that precious part of her soul, named Ky, missing from her consciousness.

It felt strange touching her belly now and instead of feeling nervousness and excitement dance beneath her finger tips, she now felt fear and anxiousness for her husband...and the selfish fear that she might carry this child alone...birth, raise and love this child...alone. She could scarcely imagine it. Yet here she was face to face with it. Now when her palm was pressed to stomach she struggled against tears at the fact that she may carry in her womb all that was left of her cherished Ky. All that was left of her husband.

"Rey?" She jumped at the sound of Poe's voice, caught off guard by his sudden presence and her own lack of observation. She rapidly blinked the tears from her eyes and uncomfortably dropped her hand from her belly.

"You alright?" He asked, genuine concern molding his face into a gentle expression.

Poe had aged greatly since she'd seen him last, he wore it in his face, in his heavy voice...his slow movements—as though the entire world sat upon his shoulders—and atop his head in his dark hair which was nearly half grey now. She hardly knew him she realized...he'd been one of her only friends when she'd joined the Resistance, and she felt so close to him...but she didn't really know him. She hadn't had any relationships before, so he seemed to be so close...yet as she looked at him now she realized she'd never really known him.

Certainly she'd never know someone like she knew Ky...she didn't want to. She knew Ky's body, mind, soul, fears, loves, worries, secrets, and thoughts. She knew everything about him and he knew everything about her and no one else knew either of them like they knew each other...but she didn't want to know anyone else like that. It was overwhelming and precious and priceless and she only wanted that with one person...but certainly there was more to know about Poe. As she stared into his aged, sorrowful dark eyes she felt that old desire, to reach out and know another soul than her own.

"Actually," Poe shook his head and gave her an uncomfortable smile, "Scratch that, you don't have to be alright...just...you want to talk about it?"

Talk about it.

That unspoken thing between them.

That deep wound that separated them now; she had left him and Finn and the General and everything they stood for to run away with Ky. And she'd do it again. She loved that man more than anything—anything—in the universe... Of course she didn't want to talk about it. That unspoken tragedy that she'd found love worth lying and dying for and left them all behind...had abandoned them...like her parents had abandoned her.

Poe gave another heavy sigh and motioned to the bench next to him as he sat down. "Kay, how about him?" He looked down at his boot toe and then looked up at her with a deep gentleness and a empathy she hadn't expected. "Do you want to talk about him?"

"I-I wouldn't know what to say." She whispered, tears building across her vision again.

He patted the bench invitingly and asked softly, "Do you miss him?"

She bit her lip and her breath shivered as she swallowed a sob and nodded, tears finally spilling over her cheeks.

"So tell me about him. Tell me about it. Tell me what hurts." He whispered hoarsely, clearing his throat uncomfortably. She stared at him in incredulity... Kylo had ripped information from his head forcefully, captured him, let those soldiers beat and torture him, killed friends of his, and yet he was willing to swallow that just to give her some comfort. For a moment, she didn't feel quite as alone in the universe and she gingerly sat down next to him, staring still slightly unbelieving at him. Poe Dameron, she decided, was definitely a friend she wanted to get to know, as she took a deep breath before baring little parts of her pain and hurt.

"Well," She started, softly, "Ky and I are Bond-Mates..."She glanced up at him warily and he gave her a soft, reassuring smile and nodded for her to continue. "So... our force's basically attached to each other and we can see each others minds..."

"Like reading thoughts?" Poe asked.

"Sort of.." She nodded, "Thoughts, emotions, images, sensations..when you're force bonded with someone you own a part of their mind and they own a part of yours… " She began.


	19. In the Beginning

**Author's Note:**

 **Okay, last one for now. Just a heads up, whenever I do flashbacks or memories I will probably Italicize them. So if you see a large chunk, or entire chapter like this one italicized, it probably happened a while ago. Just a quick explanation.**

 **This is where the relationship started, y'all! This is where the ride began. They've come a long way in Seven years...a LONG way. ;) enjoy!**

 **-D.**

 _Rey grunted in frustration, "It's not working!"_

" _Breathe," Luke soothed, "Just, breathe. Open your senses to the force, welcome it in, let it explore you and in turn you can explore it. It's energy, search for a gentle hum or a flickering light."_

 _Rey was sitting criss-crossed in front of Luke with her eyes shut, feeling like a fool searching for something that wasn't there. The only time she felt the force was when she desperately needed it and was terrified for her life. Of course she dared not voice that to Luke, because wasn't that the dark side? Didn't Luke remind her often of his Master Yoda's teachings? "Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering." That was the dark side. And that meant Kylo Ren to her. She knew she didn't want to be on the dark side because that's where that monster dwelled...and she loved the General and her Master, Luke, and they were of the light. So she loved the light and hated the dark. She did not claim to be anything other than a simple person. And so she was nothing complicated. She had so few social connections how could she be in reality?_

" _Can you sense it?" She was dragged back to the present by Luke's gentle probing and heaved a great sigh before opening her eyes to look at him sheepishly. He sighed too and rolled his eyes, "You got distracted again." It wasn't a question._

" _I, I just don't get it!" She tried for the millionth time to explain. "I just can seem to get it right. I don't even know what I'm looking for really." She slumped against the rock behind her in defeat._

 _Luke frowned and picked up a pebble to start fiddling with, tossing it up in the air, running his thumb along itś spine, flicking dried mud off it and meticulously cleaning it...he did this frequently when deep in thought. "What did it feel like, when you used it the first time?"_

 _She picked up a rock of her own, to avoid looking at him._

" _Rey, please, I can not help you find it, if you won't let me. It's all right, whatever it is. There are many ways for someone to sense the force, for some it's a physical sensation, for some it's emotional, or a smell, Leia always describes it as lights, she sees different lights in different people. I see images that represent someone's specific force to me...some hear it like a sound-a hum or a song. Everyone's different… what was it you felt when you touched the force?"_

 _Rey bit her lip and pressed her thumb into the rock as hard as she could._

" _Come now, child, just trust me. I won't think any less of you, no matter what it is."_

" _You might."She mumbled._

" _Try." He dared her with a slight twinkle in his blue eyes._

" _I- I feel the dark side." She blurted._

 _The twinkle flickered to worry. "What on earth do you mean by that?"_

" _Oh! I don't know!" She hurled the rock out to the sea, but it hit the cliff side on the way down and missed the water completely. It was farther out than it looked. She groaned and closed her eyes, pressing her head against the rock._

" _Describe it to me, Rey." Luke demanded solemnly. "The darkside is not something to touch, it's dangerous. Describe it so I can help you."_

" _It's hard to describe." SHe moaned, "itś….overwhelming." She opened her left eye just a crack to study his reaction. His eyes held a far off look as though he had this very conversation a long time ago, like a he seen this conversation many times and yet never in reality._

" _I know."He whispered, "I know it's overwhelming, try though. Please just try and let me help you." She was surprised to see tears reflecting in his eyes._

" _It's not bad!"She tried quickly to backpedal, she hadn't meant to frighten him, or hurt him. She didn't want to worry him. "I mean, the dark side is bad, but the feeling, it's overwhelming...but...itś not...a bad feeling...¨ Now he looked terrified and she sighed in frustration, this was not working. "It's ...it's like," she tried to think of a worthy analogy, "It's like swimming."Luke's perplexed expression spurred her on to explain herself. "The first time I went swimming here, I was overwhelmed...not just by the thought of drowning-that was terrifying-but also by the feel of it, and the amount of it...I never seen so much water in my whole life, much less touched it. To be completely surrounded and swallowed by water was a terrifying and yet ecstatic feeling. I was overwhelmed by the thought of death in drowning and overwhelmed by the thought of life and how I would never have to worry of dying of thirst again… that's what it felt like when I first used the force, like I was suddenly engulfed by it, I said it was like the dark side because it happened when I was scared, and imprisoned and...and when Han died." She stopped to look at Luke in uncertainty. "Do you understand what I mean?"_

 _He gave an unknowing, perplexed smile and nodded, "Yes dear, we all have those signature darkside emotions, itś when you let them attach themselves to your force that it becomes dangerous. Don't concern yourself with it too much. You musn't be afraid of your force, only leary of the dark side. Don't strain yourself, how about we call it quits for today. We can try again later. How about some dinner?"He was back to being quietly cheerful, grief and fear only flickering in the background f his gaze. He offered his hand to her but she shook her head and stared out over the sea._

" _I'll be done in a minute...I...just give me a minute."_

 _Luke frowned but validated her request, walking off to his hut as she glared out over the sea trying to find a better way to explain it. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and tried again. This time trying to mimic the feelings she had when she used it first._

 _Her heart beat hard in her chest and her veins slowly seemed to sing with it as she felt the energy surround her. She swam in the force, relishing in the terrifying and beautiful feeling of it coursing through her hair and running through her fingertips. She breathed it in and her heart pounded in exhilaration as itś cool touch washed over her. She lept to her feet in excitement, opening her mouth to call to Luke, to tell him she done it. She'd found it-when a sharp piercing pain drilled through her skull and she dropped back down to the ground with a cry._

 _Suddenly the water that surrounded her began to heat until she desperately tried to pull away it was so hot. She was being boiled alive, she couldn't scream, the muscles in her chest were so tight and her throat was of fire, flames sprouting from her tongue. She shook and shuddered and tried to call for Luke, but could only muster a moan. This had never happened before. She'd never been consumed like this._

" _In the fourteenth quadrant," A voice was instructing. Then, "Ren, Ren! Are you even listening to me?"_

 _Rey didn't recognize the voice, and could hardly grasp that the name sounded familiar._

 _ **Who's there?** A voice hissed. **Get out! Get out Get out Get out!**_

 _Rey collapsed onto her back and struggled to breathe as dark emotions swarmed her and drowned her. Anger, hate, pain, terror, guilt, fury, rage...she let out a whimper as all the attention of the force of those emotions was focused on her and she couldn't scurry away, couldn't hide as a furious gaze scrutinized her._

 _ **Scavenger?** The voice asked in sudden recognition. And suddenly the pieces clicked into place. Ren. This was Kylo Ren. He was speaking to her . _

_**Release me!** She thought with all her might, trying not to beg. Let me go!_

 _ **Get out of my head.** He snarled and then it was as though a door was slammed in her face and she was suddenly alone staring at a cold grey surface of a stone wall separating her from the villian's thoughts. His thoughts! She was inside his head! Like he had been in hers on the starkiller base. Suddenly Han's startled face flashed before her eyes and she remembered how much she loathed that horrible creature Kylo Ren. She surged to her feet, still a bit unsteady as she grew accustomed to moving around in her force… she wondered if her physical body was still lying on the ground, or acting out the motions with her. She didn't really think too hard about how ridiculous she might appear. _

_She slammed her fists against the stone wall and screamed in fury at the monster on the other side. This was a way she could hurt him-Han´s murderer and she wanted every chance she could get to rip him limb from limb. She knew somewhere in the back of her head that this was the dark side, but in the moment didn't particularly care. She still didn't understand the dark side or the light side, but she understood her emotions, and felt perfectly justified in letting her force react naturally to those emotions._

 _She beat on the wall and shouted curses at him, furious that her bare palms did nothing but make weak slaps on the granite. She paused to pant and suddenly she had an idea. Easing her fingers into one of the natural grooves along the wall she began pushing as much force as she could through her fingertips and widening the crack. It began to split and send a web of hairline cracks branching out along the outer surface of the wall and she grunted as she poured more energy into the action. There was a groan and a rumble and a chunk of the wall collapsed in._

 _She glared through the crack into the mind of her most hated enemy and thrust her hands into the crack to do it again. She hesitated only when a warm, heavy liquid coated her hands and forearms and crimson red began to pour through the crack. Just a trickled at first, but it quickly grew into a free fall. She leapt back with a gasp as blood painted her robes and hands and ran beneath her boots._

" _No, no you're not listening to me, Ren! Focus! The supreme leader said-"_

 _An enraged scream tore itself through the crack and two large hands snagged her and pulled her against the wall, crushing her face into the crack. She stared in horror at the face of Kylo Ren, saber wound across his face fresh and raw and bleeding again, but in amounts large enough to gush forth from the crack like molten lava. He roared in fury at her and slammed her against the wall over and over and over and she could do nothing to stop him. Her forehead split as he snapped her against the wall a final time._

 _He then wrapped bloody fingers around her throat and a massive hand closed off her windpipe. All of the emotions and sensations and memories of a life poisoned with the reek of the darkside were thrust upon her and she drowned in them. It wasn't nearly so pleasant as she imagined drowning though...it was like drowning in sand, rough rock tearing her open form the inside and crushing her with unbearable weight._

 _She coughed and shuddered and weakly clawed at his massive hand but couldn't quite get a good hold on it because it was so slippery. Her vision began to fade and her back spasmed in a last desperate ploy to breathe, but all that entered her nose and mouth was blood. It poured from her attacker and poured from her forehead and overflowed from the crack in the mighty stone managed one last attempt at clawing at his face but all that she could manage was a weak graze of his face, fingers slipping down his cheek in molten hot blood. Everything began to fade._

 ** _Stay out._**

 _But then, just as suddenly as it had started, it ended. She was alone in her own head once more on her island. The lonely one surrounded by the ocean. She hadn't thought of it for months. The pain evaporated and her eye rolled back in their sockets as she lost consciousness all together._

 **Author's note:**

 **Yup, like I said...a LOOONNNNGGG way. They're way past that stage now ;) you know, the "I hate the very air you breath, you're a monster and I want to kill you" stage. We've all been through that, right? Haha, thanks for sticking with me and my random story spastic updates.**

 **-D.**


	20. Out with the Old In with the New

**Okay, everybody, the plot thickens...more. So I just updated chapter 10-"what does this mean?"- and the second half of the chapter is Finn's perspective. Ooooh! Finn! please go back and read that, sorry for the random add on. It didn't fit well chronologically when I had it later on in the story. and FINN! he needed to be in this, so he is. And we love him. :)**

 **A Word of Thanks: Thank you to my Faithful Few readers who are sticking to this even when I don't update for weeks...er...months. ;) I love all of you dearly! Thanks for the support! Tripping55! Your encouragement was beautiful and well timed! I was shocked to see an actual review in my inbox and was touched by your positive reinforcement. I'm so thankful for readers like you! I hope you stick around! Thanks again! For your encouragement, for your reassurance that this tale is being heard and for your tears too. I always hope that my writing means as much to my readers as it does to me!**

 **Okay, enough of my pitifully obviously gushing. ;) here's a little bit more Hux- Snark and Sass because today seems like a good day for some of that ;). The only chunky paragraph is Hux- Snark. The whole thing. It's splendid. Loved writing this one! ;) Enjoy!**

"Obviously, this scheme is rubbish." General Oru sneered, Hux sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose as the rest of the council nodded along in obedient agreement. "It leaves the back of the fleet completely open to attack and flanks the air on both sides by our enemy."

"No,"Hux looked up with a glaring eyeroll. "That is what the plan is designed to look like, not how it is designed to be enacted. It is built in similar fashion to many plans in Yorker's third volume of Attack formations and Strategies. Have you read that, General Oru?"He didn't wait for the response before rambling on in a manner that expressed just how bored he was at the General's opinion and hinted at how frustrated he was with his obvious lack of education. "No I don't suppose you have time for such things like educating yourself, nevermind, I will explain it to you in very simple terms so that your brain may have a chance at catching up if you work hard enough. It is called a Trap, General. T-r-a-p. Does that help? I suppose it should be encouraging to see that it is so expertly designed that you can not tell it's a trap...but I can't help but be concerned with how dim-witted the inner-most council of the First Order has become. I worked for weeks on this project alone, uncertain if I'd be able to out-wit a sixty year old woman with a blaster and her little band of lesser species, yet I managed to fool you simply by putting my code number at the bottom of the report. Disappointing, truly. I hope, for your sakes, the Supreme leader didn't have as high expectations as I did. I'd hate to see how he'd react to this blatant display of stupidity."

There was a communal silence as General Oru, stood red faced in the circle, opening his mouth and shutting it in a similar fashion to a fish. The rest of the council, uncomfortably shifted until one by one they began picking up the report and read it, more carefully as to awkwardly try and grasp what it was the youngest General had designed exactly. Hux began to pick at his nails.

Captain Phasma entered with a crisp salute and came over to stand by Hux's shoulder.

Hux stiffly stood up and gave a sharp bow to the council. "You'll have to excuse me, I have more important matters to attend to than sit here idly, as you struggle through the concept of setting a trap. General's."

With that he turned crisply on his heel to exit.

General Oru lept to his feet with a curse and drew his weapon which Phasma efficiently disarmed, in a matter of seconds.

"General, please contain yourself."Hux monotoned without looking up from his nails.

"Get your Bed-slave off me, Armitage! I'll rip out your innards and make you swallow them, I'll-"

Hux's icy blue eyes snapped up to meet the General's as he was forced onto the table by the much stronger and trained Phasma. Everyone in the room froze as Hux calculated the best way to resolve the complication. His fingers itched for the hilt of his blaster, and there was an inviting target throbbing along the side of Oru's temple. But if he simply killed the man it would only verify in the council's opinion that the Captain was in fact his bed-mate. If he let it fly, however, Oru would use it as a constant insult to throw back in both of their faces. Besides that, he'd allied himself with Phasma when they were adolescents and he had no intention of giving the General any hopes that he might somehow enjoy her if he caught her unawares.

Eyes still flashing dangerously, but voice deceivingly calm, he flippantly noted, "I would be more careful as to whom you call a bed-slave next time, General Oru. Besides the fact that the Captain is far more competent that you in hand to hand, aim, strength, and general intelligence, I would sooner find a bed-slave in your wife than in the company of a colleague of mine. Captain, would you escort me to the hangar now? I believe this embarrassing show has made me late to greet our guest."

Phasma released the man immediately and joined Hux as they stiffly marched out of the council room and left the speechless audience.

Hux steadied himself as they rounded the corner, before they reached the hangar. The buzzing had been growing in the back of his head steadily for a few days now and he needed to evaluate himself before he met the newest Ren. Seizing and twitching on the ground would not be the best way to show his power over his military or demand respect. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"Sir?" Phasma waited expectantly. "Have you decided about the west quadrant?" This was of course code, they didn't have a west quadrant.

"No,"He opened his eyes, "I haven't decided. Perhaps this evening."

"Very well." She nodded and followed him in the hangar.

The newest member of the knights of Ren was a fourteen year old girl. Jae Ren. He had corresponded several times about her with the Supreme Leader, but nothing had prepared him for meeting her in person. Power poured off her in a mist that chilled him even to his bones. Hux didn't possess any force, but that could be the only logical explanation for the shiver that ran down his spine as he watched the child play with her dark curls absent mindedly, seven of his most trained troopers dead at her feet. Her predecessor Kylo Ren had never infected him with this sort of terror. He was predictable, and angry, and easily manipulated. He was raging and tumult and she was icy and stone cold.

Stormy, grey-green eyes snapped up to meet his with an unquenchable fury set in her childish round face. A mass of ebony browned curls framed her face like a mane and the red lights of the open exit ramp danced maniacally across her nut brown skin. She wore black robes and a darker scowl, and had a saber at her developing hip.

"You're late." She snapped. She had a soft, breathy voice, still cracking like an ember in the ashes.

"You killed your entire escort." He raised a flaming brow in reproach, wiping his anxiety clean off his expression and replacing it with an irritated mask of disapproval, setting the mask over his thoughts as well, knowing creatures such as this could practically smell these emotions.

"I was bored." She rolled her eyes. "Don't make me bored, next time."

As if that would change anything. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes. In the few words that had hissed between those full, childlike lips he knew that there was nothing he could do to avoid this scenario again. Perhaps he'd send less valuable an escort next time...or better yet give the honor of arranging an escort for the KNight of Ren to one of the other more deserving Generals to spare his own troops.

"Would you like to be escorted to your rooms?" He decided against rebuking her. She did not look like the type to respond well to such methods. Perhaps pampering would work best with her.

"I know the way."She rolled her eyes flippantly, "I saw the map in his head." She gestured to one of her fresh kills. "Just make sure they bring me water, not food tomorrow for breakfast, and that your technology does not fail you when my Master calls tomorrow. He will want to watch a full broadcast of my dual with the traitor tomorrow. When was the last time you fed him?"

"He was last fed two days ago."Hux replied tightly, trying to maintain the welcome without snapping at the child and putting her in her place.

"Good, he can't have eaten in three days for the dual to remain sacred. He hasn't been beaten recently either?"

"He decided to detonate himself, three weeks ago and is still recovering, but he hasn't been punished other wise for two weeks."

"Good."She nodded. Before marching off. Short, thin, and nearly prepubescent but more powerful than nearly every creature in the galaxy. He shook his head as he watched her leave. Why was the most power given to children who didn't know what to do with it save killing their guards out of boredom. There were so many more efficient, practical and strategical things he would do with such power in his veins, rather than slash up consols, strangle messengers and kill escorts. There were better. More effective ways at instilling fear, and more valuable-loyalty. He was coming to the opinion that Force-users had a severe deficiency in logic and strategy… but so did his peers who were not- force sensitives. Perhaps it was just him who relied on such things as intelligence and rational.

"Call a cleanup crew." He told Phasma, gesturing to the seven bodies discarded on the floor. "Deal with this. " Then he clasped his hands behind his back and strode out towards his study, deep in thought and contemplation.

 **Dun-Dun-DUN! And I have introduced yet another key character. She's beautiful. And evil. One of my most beautifully evil little children-um, *cough* characters! Sorry! ;) Stay tuned! the next chapter is completely Jae Ren! XD**

 **-D.**


	21. The Mad Child

**Hey ya´ll, I just learned there are way more of you than I realized! So excited to be able to share my work with so many people! Can't even express how excited I am! XD And lookie here! I've updated every day FOR THREE DAYS! what is this strange concept? Can't promise it'll ever happene again like this...but enjoy it while it lasts right? ;)**

 **Here's my OC villain character Jae Ren. Get to know her, she'll be back. :)**

 **Kudos to all of you fantabulous readers! I love you all!**

 **-D.**

Jae stalked confidently down the corridor like a panther. Red reeked of fear, and fury, and strategy. Dangerous. She did not want him anywhere near her. Metal smelled of nauseating loyalty and unquestioning obedience. She wanted to rip her heart out. They were bonded, she could feel it. But not in a sexual manner. Just...bonded. The kind that is forged in molten magma and rises stronger than iron. A bond of necessity and longevity rather than attraction and passion. The Bond pulled taut between them as Red stalked off buzzing. _**Buzz.**_

He was always buzzing she assumed. His brain was buzzing with genius and thought and strategy but also frailty...the buzzing was climbing in pitch and she wondered if his mind was about to betray him...how close to the edge of madness must one dance to achieve genius? Metal was not buzzing, or frail. She was rock solid and dense. She was having them clean up the bodies. Obedient. It made Jae sick. _**Vomit.**_

The first kill had showed her the way. It was far. Too far. Men were stopping and looking at her. Some out of curiosity-the next Ren was a mere child. Some out of fear-she was the most powerful the Knights Circle had ever had. Some out of dark lust. She could feel it wafting off of them and touching her every crevice with their greed. She smirked at them knowingly and grit her teeth against the urge to kill all of them. To rip out their innards and make them eat them. To snare their hearts and eat them whole. There were too many of them. _**Armies.**_

She would kill too many of them for Red to allow for...then she'd have to kill him and she didn't want to kill Red. Not yet. She wanted to toy with him and see what made him tick. She wanted to find a fear in him he could not shut down like he had when he first felt her power rush through him. She wanted to see the exact point in time were logic and reason succumbed to madness...and she was too far into the midst of madness to trace herself back...he was dancing around the edges...she wanted to watch him warp...she wanted to drink his fear. She didn't want to have to kill Red yet, so she left the lusting alone...for now. Perhaps she would take them one by one and dance to the melodies of their screams. _ **Beautiful.**_

The guard by her door, leered down at her and withheld her key from her as he opened his mouth to make a demand. The lust poured from this one with experience and she cocked her head to the side examining him. He was tall and dark-haired...handsome and in his mid-thirties. He would make a perfect example, she decided. Perfect. _**Present.**_

As he opened his cruel mouth to make his demand her hand shot forward and he flew up to be pinned against the wall. His dark eyes flew wide in surprise and shock and as they studied her the lust drained and the fear welled. Her mouth quirked up and to the left and her wide eyes narrowed as she plucked the key from his hand. Then she took a finger of her force and honed it glass-sharp before drilling it into the man's chest. He let out a scream and she shivered in excitement, satisfaction and ecstasy pooling in her chest. She loved that sound. _**Screams**_.

Carefully and artistically she carved her words onto his chest, "Don't Touch." and left him up on the wall outside her chambers. She gave him a sweetly insane smile and used the key to enter her chambers. _**Goodnight.**_

The door clicked shut behind her and she stroked the room for any persons. There were none, only droids. Good droids were better than people. She killed one anyways, just for fun. She wandered around, studying the dark nature of the stone work and hummed as she traced the smooth granite walls. She gasped in delight as power kissed her fingers. She explored it. It was the Master Kight's energy. Almost a decade old...he'd been storing it up in the walls of his chambers. She grinned as she placed her hands on the cool surface and pulled. _**Devoured.**_

His power was angry, and red. Snapping like a dragon in her veins. She gave a delighted giggle as his dark force hummed in her chest. She could feel his fears, and his desires. She could trace his thoughts, dark hisses...long out-dated...but a testament to what he was. How powerful. How destructive. It was like a breath of fresh air. Shredding her lungs and piercing her nose. She pulled and pulled and pulled, greedily stealing away his stores, giving herself the advantage of knowing his dark force before their duel the next morning. This was her predecessor. And when she killed him tomorrow she would drink his blood and force until he was dry and dead and forfeited his title of Master of the Knights of Ren to her. Jae Ren. He, by tradition was still the Knight's Master, even traitor that he was, because he hadn't been bested in duel. He lived on. She would kill him tomorrow, and thank his corpse for this great gift. This power, and position and title. He was indeed a great master. She giggled again. _**Funny.**_

She couldn't hold any more of his power...it was too much. Too torn...a dragon split at the seams. He was conflicted even then...in his prime. If he hadn't been torn between Dark and Light he would have been powerful. Even more than the Supreme Snoke. But his mind was weak...too weak to kill his heart. She snickered. Now she had his power and understood his weaknesses. She was thirsty for his blood. So thirsty. SHe could already taste it. _**Patience.**_

She unbuttoned her boots and dropped her cloak on the bed before wandering into the bathhouse. It was clean and black like the rest of the chamber, the mirror was cracked, and she grinned at her reflection enjoying how cracked her reflection was and how telling it was of her image. She giggled and explored the shower. Barefooted and half-clothed she played with it until it burst to life scalding hot. She gasped and grinned letting it soak her remaining clothing and burn her skin. She leaned into it. _**Hot.**_

Slowly she turned the heat down down down until it was icy cold and bit into her red welting skin as she removed the rest of her clothing and left it in a dark wet pile in the corner of the shower. She shivered in the shower. Icy and numb. Calming down her excitement for the duel. "Not yet, love. Not yet." She cooed. She would wait for tomorrow. She had not eaten in two days. She was excited to devour her opponent. She bit her lip to contain her anticipation and red hot blood streaked down her chin. _**Wait.**_

 _ **Buzz.**_

 _ **Vomit.**_

 _ **Armies.**_

 _ **Beautiful.**_

 _ **Present.**_

 _ **Screams.**_

 _ **Goodnight.**_

 _ **Devoured.**_

 _ **Funny.**_

 _ **Patience.**_

 _ **Hot.**_

 _ **Wait.**_

She laid down atop the covers wet, shivering and shuddering and numb.

 _ **Sleep.**_


	22. Forcible Fasting

**And here we go, I'm on a roll!**

 **-D.**

Kylo shifted as his small companion tapped his shoulder to wake him up to release them. He wasn't sure if Companion was male or female, only sure that they weren't human. He unlocked his shaking arms to let Companion crawl free from the warmth of his embrace and shivered as the small bit of warmth across his chest and belly was suddenly absent. Seven years of desert dwelling had destroyed his internal thermometer it would seem- or perhaps it was his damaged nerve endings.. It didn't matter- He was freezing. A few moments later Companion touched his shoulder to alert him to their position and a small, three-fingered hand rubbed once across his belly. Food.

It had been some time...a few weeks he'd say… at least one, maybe two, it was hard to tell without the use of his senses. Companion and he had developed a form of communication in that time period and could now have basic conversations, using the last of his remaining senses: touch. "Cold," Embrace. "Hungry," Poke their, the other's, stomach."Alive?" Hand on their chest above heart."Guards," Three taps anywhere on their body, whatever you can reach quick enough to warn. "Alone," Finger to their ips."Sleep," Palm to the their forehead."Food," rub across their belly. Food. He sat up and reached out and Companion directed his hands to the bowl of slimy something that was food. He hadn't been fed in two days, his body trembled with the need for nourishment.

As soon as his shaking fingers found the bow however, there was a panicked three taps to the inside of his wrist from where he reached, and even as he tensed a fist connected with his jaw and knocked him flat on his back. A boot came down hard on his stomach and he felt the air flee his lungs suddenly. He rolled over to cough violently only to have another boot brill into his stomach. A gloved hand grabbed the base of his hairless skull at the joint his neck and the matching fist rammed into his teeth. He coughed again as he was forced to swallow his own blood.

No eating. He got the message. His captor drew a harsh hand across his bruising stomach and then slapped him across the face. He nodded compliantly. He understood! No eating! He couldn't be much clearer. A knee connected to his sternum as a parting blow and then it was just him, curling up on the floor around his wounds. Trembling. Shaking. So weak. He was so weak. Escape was impossible at this point...two days wasn't too long to go without food...but while he was still healing...he wondered distantly if this would kill him.

A tiny wrinkled hand touched him tentatively and he started away before he realized it was Companion. Then he reached for the only kind creature he'd had contact with since Rey. Since he'd kissed her that last time and thrown her away. Given her to Dameron. Prayed that he would accept her and care for her...her friend...what if he had misjudged the man? Rey could take care of herself, he knew that. But so could he, under any other circumstance...and look where he was. Tears pressed against his eyes and the uncertainty of his wife's position. He sighed.

Reaching out he found Companion's face and searched for their lips, pressing his finger to them

Alone?

Companion responded by pressing a little finger to his lips as well.

Alone.

He sighed again and let his head fall back to the ground in exhaustion. He needed to eat.

he was too weak...didn't matter. This was imprisonment. He would starve.

Companion palmed his forehead and he let his eyes flicker shut.

Sleep.

And he did.


	23. The West Quadrant

**Okay, Y'all, here we go again. Super short chapter here, but super important. The chapter after this is much longer to make up for it, and I'm just about editing that so it should be up today or tomorrow.**

 **-D.**

Hux got back to his chambers. Barely. He had a tell-tale headache. A pressing on every inside surface of his skull, his eyes drooped dangerously and he swayed as he walked-as though drunk.

 _Get back to the Chambers. Back to the chambers. Not until I get there. Please wait until I get there._

He realized he was pleading with himself and abruptly stopped. He would have sneered at himself if his mouth was obeying his command at the moment. He fumbled with the key pad again and decided through the fog that he was going to have it replaced with a fingerprint scan. It was easier to hack...but then he wouldn't have to wait outside his rooms on the brink of an episode again.

"Phasma," he rasped into his mic before he flicked it off. "I've decided about the west quadrant." Then the door fell in as his code released it and he all but collapsed on the floor. He fell to his knees and pressed his hands against his eye sockets. The only thing to do now was wait it out...all of the medications they'd tried made the episodes worse. He was so overwhelmed by the buzzing that he hadn't even noticed he wasn't alone in his rooms.

It hit. First his left arm began to seize and then instant darkness swallowed him as he lost touch with reality and was consumed by the seizure. His last thought before he dropped was that if Phasma was too far away, he may very well suffocate before she got there. The idea didn't bother him in the slightest.

 **Hux is hiding secrets. Shocker. Anyone else notice how sick he looked in the movie?**


	24. Fallen Secrets and Revelations

**Okay Y'all here's a longer one to make up for the last one. For all of you who are like "Wait...did something really big just happen with Hux?" The answer is yes. Yes it did. It will all be explained in greater detail here.**

 **This is form the perspective of one of my favorite OC's... kay, I say that, but let's be honest. I LOVE THEM ALL. ;) and you all. My lovely readers. I love y'a ll. :)**

 **-D.**

Ahlai had the chess pieces in place hopefully. She had hovered by the board, anxiously awaiting the return of her Charge the red-headed General Hux. He hadn't introduced himself, she just knew his name.

He developed the Ilurastoni Equation to calculate the general life-expectancy of a planet based on its combined factors of mass, elements, gravitational orbit and life-forms and wrote the Wensti method of Cultural Integration, Segregation and Degradation which he had used to train the most sophisticated and large scale organized military in all of History-Next to the Empire.

She had seen a picture of him as one the guards had led her to his chambers the night before, and one of the better-natured one's pointed him out as her Charge before endeavouring to make uncommonly crude suggestions about what she ought to do to impress him. It was a startling reminder of what she was now...and worse...what she was no longer. She had been disappointed atop her terror.

General Armitage Hux. He never attended Former school, and tested out of Medial, finished Temperance at the age of nineteen while simultaneously beginning the foundations of his military organizations and then completed four courses in strategy, psychology, engineering and Logic. She had always wanted to have a discussion with him. To meet with him. On an intellectual level. They agreed on very little and would have probably liked each other even less, but if she had been allowed to finish her Title Courses, she could have addressed him as a fellow intellectual. Now she was to be his pleasure slave. Reality could be more ironic than fiction ever dreamed.

She had decided upon entering that she would kill him. Used a psychological analysis of him she threw together from previous knowledge and the order of his room and nature of his literature to attempt at discovering a weapon of some sorts...he was a General. She had to assume he had armed his bed chambers. Then she had waited. Waited for the inevitable. Prayed it would be quick...or better yet she would drop dead before he reached her.

No such luck. He had found her alive and petrified, only breaking out of her stupor to make a meager endeavor to defend herself which had gone horrifically south and ended her precisely where she had been trying to avoid; at the mercy of one of the cruelest, most educated, hateful creatures in the galaxy. Splendid.

But he had not broken her, like she was certain he would. He'd….stared at her. And continued to stare...unreadable. Furiously stoic. Until suddenly he'd let out a breath as though he 'd held it for a millennium and let her go. Laid there next to her as though it were he, and not her who'd been traumatized by the predicament, and asked her her name-boredly, as though he didn't care at all, as though he hadn't just spared her a fate worse than death-asked her to play chess, as though there was nothing in the world he would rather do. And they had played. And she had left. And they had returned her the next night. And she waited. By the chess board. In hopes that he would rather play chess again. Hoping he'd rather be intellectually stimulated than have stimulation of any other sort.

The door clicked open. She trembled like a falling leave on the edge of a gale, uncertain as to where this storm might leave her...or if there would be anything left to leave at all. And she hoped. Blindly.

The General stumbled into the room. Or perhaps it was more of a fall, and Ahlai froze as the man's knees collided with the floor. Her heart shook in her frame in uncertainty and fear and a sudden dousing of adrenaline like gasoline on a flame. He pressed his hands to his eyes, as though trying to keep them in place and let out a low moan. It was so soft, she nearly didn't hear it. So repressed it was as something that someone had practiced quieting, smothering, so quiet and frail she couldn't quiet match it to the man who uttered it.

And then he collapsed all the way to the floor and began to... seize. It was a violent seizure and she barely had enough time to drag the counter topped dresser away from his left side before he could collide with it. She carefully watched the clock and the patient to time the seizure. Her heart pounded frantically, his eyes were rolled all the way back, so all she could see was the whites and he shuddered in a frightening manner. She attempted to roll him onto his side but he proved to heavy for her and she didn't want to risk applying too much pressure. She managed to loosen his tie and unbutton his the top of his shirt. The air smelled of urine as he lost control of his involuntary and voluntary sphincters.

It lasted 67 seconds. 67 very long and terrifying seconds. When he finally stopped, his eyes shut definitively and his body when slack. She eased him onto his side to allow the liquids to drain freely but listened in worry to the wheezing attempts at breathing he was making. She pinched his mouth open to look for a blockage but didn't see any. The wheezing worsened and his lips began to darken. She reached into his mouth and used her two longest fingers to clear the blockage. It poured from his mouth freely and his breathing fell into a regular rhythm of unconsciousness. She knelt back on her heels in satisfaction.

The door clicked open again and a giant threw her across the room. She let out a startled cry as she literally flew a few feet before colliding with the furniture she had moved earlier and her head cracked against the corner. Her hands immediately came up to defend herself, but the giant seemed disinterested in her and knelt down next to the general. The helmet came off revealing a tangled mop of blonde hair and the giant leaned down to listen to the General's breathing, finally the giant turned on Ahlai and pinned her with a steely stare.

Ahlai jumped in startlement. The Giant was a woman. Fierce, frightening and feral...but most definitely female.

"Who are you?" She demanded in a quick military tone, sharpened by survival and order.

"Ahlai," she answered, too startled to realize that didn't really answer the Giant's question. But the other woman ignored her vague answer and asked harshly,

"How did you know what to do?" She gestured to the unconscious red-headed General.

"I have three years training for and Anatomy Course Title." She answered honestly, reaching up to rub the swelling spot on her head.

"I thought you were hurting him." The woman said rather than apologizing.

"Of course not, that's preposterous!" Ahlai was shocked at the proposition, harm a helpless and ailing patient? She would never- she had just tried to kill him yesterday. She snapped her mouth closed and looked down at her bare legs uncomfortably. "I wasn't."

The giant glared at her disbelievingly and opened her mouth to say something harsh when the General cracked his eyes open and let out another one of those soft, nearly smothered moans. The Giant immediately turned back to him and said very very softly,

"Hux?"

He moaned again, blue eyes feverishly bright as he searched the Giant's face, as though it were familiar to him. Suddenly the thought crossed Ahlai's mind that this woman may indeed be the reason why he had not broken her yesternight. Perhaps there was already someone in place who received his affections; sexual and otherwise.

"Are you fully awake?"

Another moan, this one came with a wave of tears. Waking from seizures could be overwhelming, paralyzing and frightening. It would appear that the General had lost his ability to speak, that was not altogether uncommon.

"We need to get you to the shower and change you." The woman began briskly, "I'm going to move you, it doesn't look like anything's broken-"she moved gloved hands along his arms and legs just to be sure befor helping him to his feet. He frowned in discomfort but remained silent, nothing broken. "But you bit through your lip again. Here we go, up."

She helped him move to his feet and he swayed dangerously before his legs buckled and he collapsed against her. Ahlai was there in an instant on his other side, throwing his arms around her shoulder and suddenly thankful for her height. She was the same height as the General, even being three inch shorter than the giant. The other woman glared at her and General Hux looked at her in compliant confusion as though she had appeared out of nowhere but he didn't really mind at all, he had no opinion on the matter. She looked away uncomfortably. The compliancy didn't work well on his face, he should be angry, stern, tightly harnessed fury painting his face in sophisticated contempt. Not...listless...open….vulnerable.

Perhaps, she thought as she helped the Giant position him in the shower and undress him, it wasn't that it didn't fit on his face...perhaps it was that it fit so well. As though he wore this expression so close to his soul that it only showed in moments like this. He was much harder to disapprove of and hate when all she wanted to do was hold his head to her chest and rock him back and forth. Her face heated at the thought and she reverted her focus to the patient's condition. Her breath hitched. His entire torso was littered in a disorganized array of burn marks. Years old..but deep, boiling burns. She had seen these sorts of burns before...often in child slaves of the empire. The soldiers would torment them by pressing the head of their blaster to the victim's skin directly after firing and sometimes when held there long enough they burned to third degrees. The psychological trauma shown by these specific children rivaled that of any other victim or soldier in the Empire's galactic war, for th fact that if they shifted it worsened and if they begged they risked being shot. Much had been erased since the First Order rose to power, but there had been any entire four month long trauma unit on the methods of the Old Empire that she'd completed in striving for her Psychological Course Title.

The burns were stretched taut across his skin giving an indication of how young and small he was when he received them. Her gut churned and the urge to hold him only grew stronger. She had to remind herself just who he was and what he had done. Destroying four planets in a matter of minutes made the top of her list. The burns still drew the breath from her lungs painfully though...experience-wise she had never seen so many...a few were usually enough to put a slave back in their place...this accumulation could have only been for one purpose...enjoying the torment.

The Giant noticed her stare and narrowed her eyes threateningly. "Go get fresh clothing." She ordered with a chill before turning her back on Ahlai and starting the shower.

She found fresh clothing in an alcove of the wall, all blacks and greys, stiff and unforgiving. She picked the freest moving articles she could, they appeared to be athletic garb of some sort and struggled with hot-wiring the drawers open to get to the underwear and socks. The first three drawers were a well organized and maintained collection of weapons, data-pads and books. She was startled to see the books. Real, paper, hard-bound books...they looked decades old...she hadn't thought that the young prodigy general of the dictating regime would enjoy the impracticality of physical copies of such things...then again she never would have thought him epileptic either. There were many layers of pristinely kept secrets surrounding this man.

"Stop staring and get in here, woman!"The Giant commanded. "Hux, wake up. You can sleep all you want once you're dressed." She finally found under garments and rushed back in.

There was a disgruntled groan and the Giant corrected, "Yes you were."

They struggled at getting the man dressed together as he continually fell in and out of sleep, though it was obvious that the other woman had done it more than a few times in the past. Then Ahlai was pushed out of the way as the giant swung him into a fireman's carry and carted him back to the bed. It was very undignified and practical. The woman was magnificently strong.

After tossing the man in bed and throwing his covers over him haphazardly she timed his pulse and then strode back over to Ahlai who still watched timidly from the bathroom door. Not sure what to make of it all. The was beginning to seriously doubt her previous assumption that they were in a relationship of any sort. The other woman had tossed the General aside as though he weighed no more than a child and Ahlai was unaccustomed to looking up at threatening and angry female soldiers so found herself at a loss for words.

"How long was the seizure?" She demanded.

"67 seconds."

"Did you restrain him?"

"No."

"Did you harm him in any manner?"

"No."

"Were there complications?"

"He struggled with breathing directly after-"

"What did you do?"

"I cleared his airways."

"How?"

Ahlai held up her two fingers and the other woman pointed to the sink. "Wash. Now."

Ahlai blinked at her and-too stunned to protest-turned around and washed her hands.

"How long has he been using you?" She demanded in the same, drilling.

Ahlai, sucked in a breath at the casual nature of such an uncomfortable inquisition but the other woman grabbed her chin and forced her to meet her eyes. "How long?"

"He...um…" She winced as the metal gloved fingers bruised her skin, the grip didn't loosen. "We played chess!" She finally managed.

"You-" She frowned, uncomprehending and then the right side of her mouth...quirked. It wasn't a smile...persay...but perhaps for this woman it was a smirk. Of sorts. "Chess."

"Yes."Ahlai winced again, trying to hold back tears was not unlike trying to hold back the tide with one's fingers.

"Am I hurting you?" The woman glared.

"Yes." She whispered, biting her lip.

"Good. This is a friendly reminder. If you harm him, take him, or open him up to attack of any form before he wakes up I will personally see to breaking every bone in your body. Is that understood?"

"Yes." The tears would not halt...she tasted copper on her tongue.

"Once he wakes up he can fend for himself, but I have to escort a politician-"she glanced at the clock, "five minutes ago. So I will have to leave you-" she glanced back over at the General, "No, I'll take you back to your cell."She roughly grabbed Ahlai's arm.

"You can't leave him alone!"Ahlai cried, panic setting in. She couldn't go back early...the guards-her heart roared in her ears and it did not go unnoticed by the other woman. perhaps , being a woman surrounded by these cruel and militaristic men would give them an understanding, "Please! Please, I'll take care of him, just...don't send me back to my cell. Not yet! Please." She ended whispering.

The other woman's eyes narrowed and she threw a cruel gaze over Ahlai's shamefully exposed state. Ahlai closed her eyes. What was she thinking. How could she expect mercy from a woman, simply because she was another woman? In order to survive here, she must be twice as cruel, and militaristic as the men around her. She had been foolish in her fright.

"Put something on, then." the woman broke her from her thoughts, "And if I find you have manipulated, hurt or brought any sort of harm to him while he's unconscious my threat still stands. Do you understand?"

Ahlai stared dumbly.

"Do you understand?" She shook her roughly and Ahlai nodded so hard she was surprised her head didn't fall off her shoulders.

"Good." She released her and bent down to scoop up the General's discarded clothing and tossing it down a chute.

"What-"Ahlai cleared her throat, "What is your name?" She asked, meekly.

The woman's eyes narrowed at her dangerously and Ahlai wished she could disappear. "Captain." She slammed her helmet over her head and stalked out.

Ahlai released a breath she hadn't known she was holding and leaned heavily against the door frame. She closed her eyes, and prayed.

After a time period, she was not entirely sure how long, she straightened and began to explore the room, finding herself back in the little alcove and taking the Captain's words about her garb to heart. She wasn't sure exactly what she was supposed to do about it, she didn't own a scrap of clothing, so she took it as a license to scavenge what she could from his wardrobe. She decided on a long sleeved shirt and a pair of athletic pants, both black. She sighed at the warmth of them and relished in how much skin they were capable of covering. Wrapping her arms around herself she hummed contentedly and offered a prayer of thanks for the provision. Her fingers brushed the spines of the books lovingly and she smiled as she picked up a copy of Emrin's Rhetoric and Logic in Psychology. This had been one of her father's favorite books.

Pressing it to her face she breathed in the smell of old ink and paper and slipped over to the side of the bed that her Charge slept in, pulling up a chair and curling up next to the bedside, cracking the book open to the seventh chapter; the one her father used to read to her before every test.

"In conditions of high stress and emotional tension," She began to read aloud, softly and quietly as to not wake the General, but loud enough that the murmur of her own voice could fill the room and she wasn't so alone or frightened for the time being, "There are four proven methodologies in which to best direct one's course of action…"

 **Ahlai is a beautiful human and a lil' cinnamon roll :)**

 **-D.**


	25. Kill

**And, here we go again! I've published another story as well for all of you Marvel' s Agents of SHIELD fans! :) SO I' m working on several stories at once right now, bu worry not! I still love this story and have so many plans for it! (insert evil laugh here). So many plans!**

 **-D.**

Jae was awake. Too much power. Screaming. At war with itself. She gasped and rolled off the bed; bare skin stung as it hit the ground. But that was full of power too. Writhing, seething, searing. She lept to her feet and roared in frustration, releasing a neutralizing blast, cracking the walls and caving the floor in an inch. She quieted and listened. _**Silence.**_

She muttered to herself angrily and wandered about the room picking up her articles of clothing from around the room, finding many of them in the shower, still sopping wet. She pulled them on anyways. Cold, clammy. _**Better.**_

She wandered again...counted the steps across the room. Twenty-three. She beat the wall for a while, warming herself up...stopped before she broke anything though. She didn't want to break her hands today. Not today. She had the dual today. _**Excitement.**_

She had waited for this moment for so long. So long. She wanted victory, she wanted rage, she wanted to slaughter, she wanted out of this room. Now. His power was driving her mad. _**Confliction.**_

She stalked out to get a glass of water, then she would find his cell and they would duel. She glanced at the man pinned next to her door frame and blinked in surprise. She'd forgotten she'd pinned him there with her force. Dried tears stained his face and the blood was dried brown across his chest. _**Gross.**_

"Please-"He pleaded weakly, "Please let me go."

She stared, smiled sweetly, "Okay."

She snapped his neck and grinned. _**Pain.**_

She let his body fall to the ground. Continued on. Needed water. And Master. _**Now.**_

Metal was waiting for her in the mess hall. She instructed her as to where to find water, explained the conference tech was in place, it was ready for her dual, the other knights were arrived and waiting in the conference room, General Hux regretted to inform her that he would not be able to meet with her, he had an emergency meeting. _**Liar.**_

She laughed. She could smell the lie. The Captain bristled. Jae drank. The water was cooling and icy. It froze the red, snapping dragon in her veins and she sighed. She liked it, it was frigid and warm. She hummed in contentment. Today she became Master. Today was the first of the three battles; physical, force, and combination. But her opponent was blind and deaf. _**Weak**_

If she killed him in the first dual she won the title instantaneously. Unfortunately the first one was the physical, she knew she could crush his force, no one resisted her force, but she was not certain about the physical. They say he's a giant. As powerful physically as in his force. She however could see and hear. She would make it quick and swift, before he had time to collect himself. _**Efficient.**_

She pulled the water like puss from a wound. Greedily, readily, needy. She then followed the Metal Captain down a maze of corridors wondering vaguely about her broken-brained counter-part, Red. The Captain was anxious, but not in an unfamiliar way. Anxious in a practiced way. Something happened last night that always happens, but never becomes alright. _**Curious.**_

The other knights were all there and nodded to her in greeting and respect. _**Respect.**_

She counted them.

Dante Ren. The Monk.

Maverick Ren. The Heavy.

Parca Ren. The Witch.

Furia and Zevach Ren. The Huntress and Executioner. They were together, of course. Their force bond hummed anxiously between them, like it did whenever she was near them. She sneered at them as Zevach shifted his weight inconspicuously to better back his mate. Furia reacted to him fluidly, letting her powerful shoulders glide into place in front of his. She hated lovers. _**Loathed.**_

Rafiq Ren, The Armory, was predictably hovering near Wincen, The Sniper, as she passed them. He always clung to his abuser and protector like a leech and it merely fed the Sniper's massive esteem and ego. It wafted around the two of them like the stench of rotting flesh and she gave Wincen a nod-he still a force to be reckoned with- and ignored Rafiq completely. As soon as another force sensitive was found he would be replaced. They all knew it. Wincen, however, was one of her most well-rounded Knights. He was supposed to be the chosen one before Kylo Ren had come in. There had been a rivalry between the two...and anyone who had the endurance to maintain a rivalry with the Master was a valuable asset and a leering liability. After she killed the Master she'd have to decide whether to keep or dispose of Wincen. For now she tried to maintain a tolerable relation with him. _**Temporary.**_

Sorhen Ren. He didn't have a title yet. He was seventeen, merely three years her elder and began training a few weeks after her. Her face twitched when she saw him...unsure of how it was supposed to respond to him. Was she supposed to sneer? Smile? Stare? Avoid? Heat? Cool? She twitched. And then passed him. An unfamiliar heat that only Sorhen evoked from her flushing her neck and pooling somewhere within her. She didn't understand it. _**Twitch.**_

And then she was at the door.

"The walls will remain open for viewing." The Captain monotoned, flicking a few switches so the cell doors shimmered and flickered transparently revealing the two force sensitive occupants inside. A small, non-human was sitting in the center of the cell, glaring at the camera in the corner. A large, but bone-thin human male was curled up a few feet to her left. She felt the collective disquieting in the force behind her as the others took in the appearance of their Master. She grit her teeth. Their _old_ master. _**History.**_

It disturbed them to see their once to formidable and terrifying Master curled up naked and broken on a cell floor without access to his Force. Every one of them was afraid of him...even Wincen. They all hated but respected him as the most powerful of all of them. She was the most powerful of them now. She would show them. _**Cowards.**_

Except Sorhen. Sorhen was indifferent. He, like her, never new the Master. He would only know her as Master. _**Twitch.**_

"...the Sith-built walls will absorb your force upon entering,"Was the Captain still talking? She hated the Loyal Beast. "-so you won't be able to access it once in the cell. But as soon as you exit you will recharge-"

"Shut up." Jae snapped, undoing the straps and latches of her damp clothing and dressing down to her bindings and undercloth. She had to be on the equal physical level as her opponent for the dual to remain sacred. They all watched impassively. Sohren watched impassively. _**Twitch.**_

"Jae." Master Snoke's hologram flickered to life within the cell and the door slide open. She entered, shivering as her strength was drained. _**Ready.**_

"Master, today I will kill the traitor for you and take the mantle of Master of the Knights of Ren upon myself." _**Set.**_

Snoke sat back in his throne with a bemused smile on his torn face. The little creature was shaking Kylo Ren-he didn't even deserve that title anymore, Prince. He was a weak, sniveling coward. A useless cripple. A Traitor and a Thief. Kylo Ren; Prince Ren, died ages ago, this spirit possessing his body was shameful and pitiful. Looking at him now she didn't think he'd last five minutes in dual with her. _**Decrepit.**_

"You underestimate, Jae. You always underestimate." Snoke said with a twisted grin, settling in for the entertainment of their dual. _**Amused.**_

 _ **Silence.**_

 ** _Better._**

 ** _Excitement._**

 ** _Confliction._**

 ** _Gross._**

 ** _Pain._**

 ** _Now._**

 ** _Liar._**

 ** _Weak._**

 ** _Efficient._**

 ** _Curious._**

 ** _Respect._**

 ** _Loathed._**

 ** _Temporary._**

 ** _Twitch._**

 ** _History._**

 ** _Cowards._**

 ** _Twitch._**

 ** _Twitch._**

 ** _Ready._**

 ** _Set._**

 ** _Decrepit._**

 ** _Amused._**

Rage painted her bones and she longed for it to feed her force. The Supreme doubted her competency. She turned on her wan Master with a snarl and left at him, his small companion barely diving out of the way as she threw the man to the ground.

 _ **Kill.**_


	26. Attacker

_**Here you go! Sorry for the wait! Thank's for sticking with me! Here's the answer to what we've all been wondering...Does Jae kill Kylo? Does Kylo kill Jae? Answers. Here they are. Love you all! Please Please Please Review comment, love me, hate me (without language preferably), just please let me know if you are reading this story and what you think! Authors get lonely too... :(**_

 _ **Hope you enjoy! :)**_

 _ **-D.**_

Companion was trying to tell him something. Something very important. He grit his teeth in frustration at the bombarding of his sense and inability to comprehend. _Guards-no-not guards-Hungry guard-Alive?-GUARD!_ Obviously their language was not fleshed out enough for Companion to communicate what needed to be communicated.

Suddenly Companion jerked away and he was tackled by a guard.

But it wasn't a guard. Too small. He lashed out with an arm and backhanded the Attacker away. It worked. Definitely not a guard. Too small. Too weak. Not armoured. In fact. Not very clothed either. Prisoner? Again Attacker leapt atop him. Going straight for his defenseless face; clawing at eyes, nose, mouth. Scratching down hard enough to bring blood. A fingernail caught his eye. He screamed and twisted away from the grip, but thin legs clamped around his torso and a sharp joint-knee? Elbow?- crashed into his windpipe. He choked and gagged, tears pouring from the depths of his skull, trying to heal his gashed eye.

He grabbed small, knife-sharp ankles and yanked Attacker off balance, throwing them down trapping them beneath his weight. Attacker was much, much smaller than he. His arms shook with weakness and hunger, pain humming along his nerves, but even so, Attacker was helpless beneath him. He could feel snarls rising up in their thin chest even as they writhed beneath him and he brought his knees up to their shoulders, his toes pressed their knees against the cell floor. There was no way this Attacker was full grown. Proportionately they must be human...perhaps a young Zabrak, but he would expect a greater strength from a Zabrak, his hands that were now his eyes explored Attackers head. They thrashed harder, but there was no horns. Human then. He assumed female because the little clothing they wore was tied to the hip and also to the chest. His fingers found the face. Attacker bit him. He hissed in pain, blood throbbing from his fingertips. He clamped down on either side of the face , holding them still.

Young. Furious. Intent on the kill. Why? Why did this little girl want to kill him? He didn't understand. All he understood was that he couldn't kill this child. The image of his little son's death painted face from his visions were too much for him, he could not handle having another child's blood on his hands. But the child would kill him unless he immobilized her. Even no he was trembling as he secured her to the floor, he did not have endurance...too weak. His hands found her jaw and he forced her head to the right, a quick hard slice to the back of her neck sent a neurological overload through her system and the writhing, snarling, snake beneath him stilled. Taking her pulse and making sure she was still steady, he crawled off her and felt her arms and legs, for clues...insights. Why was Child his Attacker? He found nothing, merely a thin, abused, half-naked form of a vicious little girl. She'd had some skill. That was to be noted, but her size and comparatively his experience gave him an advantage he figured.

Perhaps she was another Prisoner. That would not bode well. Companion and he relied on each other, if Attacker was added to their dynamic it would be a problem. What if Attacker targeted Companion? Companion was about half of her size, quick but weak. Attacker could kill Companion in front of him and he wouldn't know the difference! He could barely defend himself against the attack, much less another he could not see. He needed Companion, Companion was his only source of communication-then the thought struck him that Companion had been jerked away before the attack...

What if Attacker had already killed Companion? Panic sent him into a flurry, reaching and groping around the nearby floor space, unwilling to let go of Attacker for fear of her waking up and beginning her onslaught again.

He did not find a small Companion, he found a boot. A very large boot. Thick, cool leather. He flinched, awaiting the cruel blow...but it didn't come. The boot didn't move either. His fingers remained on it and he hesitated. When was the blow going to come? After it didn't for a while he explored it tentatively...unwilling to have his hands injured...but unable to abate the curiosity. His fingers found the crest at the ankle.

Crest of the Knights of Ren.

It took him a while to recognize it.

His hand snapped back like he'd been burned. The air shifted around him as the Knight, whichever one it was-he didn't know-, moved around him. Attacker was lifted from his grasp and he let her go. The Knight wanted her...why, he did not know. He just wanted to stay as far away from the Knight as possible. His malnourished muscles were straining to keep his heart contained within his chest. It begged to run away.

A little hand found his and he turned to pull Companion in close.

 _Alive!_ He tapped above Companion's miniature heart.

 _Alive._ They agreed pressing a wrinkled three-fingered hand to his chest and felt his thundering heart. He let out a sigh. Companion was alive.

 _He_ was alive. He took a moment to take that fact in. He was still alive.

 _I'm still here Rey...don't know for how long...but I'm here. I'll keep fighting. I will fight to live. I promise._


	27. Almost

_**Alright, the next two chapters are for those of you who are tired and need just a little bit of hope. :) I love you, and I hear you, so here you go! We will get back into the hopelessness of life after these couple of chapters ;)**_

 _ **-D.**_

The water ran over Rey's bare back soothingly and she melted beneath it. She tipped her head back and drowned her hair in it, washing away weeks of grit and filth, but none of her pain or agony. She was alone in the showers. A rare occurrence, she remembered from her time here. It was so strange being back here...seven years was a long time...a distant memory. She remembered a time when she had adjusted to showering with several females at once. All species, all on their way somewhere, chatting laughing, singing, and a great deal of complaining had occurred. Eventually the idea of showering with other was not so strange and she came to enjoy her company.

She had been here now for three weeks and she hadn't showered once. She hated the stares, hated the whispers, didn't want to shower with these women she had betrayed. Didn't want them to see the stretch marks across her belly as anything other than beautiful. These marks were not signs of his abuse, but of their love for eachother. These marks where each a reminder of her baby, her most precious treasure...

She didn't want them to see the thinness of her frame or the scars that littered it and imagine any sort of starvation or abuse. She didn't want them to fabricate any discussions of how he might have treated her, when they would never know that he ate last. Every. Single. Meal. And when he knew she wouldn't take any more of his food, he fed Sai more, claiming the child was growing, he needed it more.

 _They_ would never know that he walked beside her everyday after long hot hours of work; her equal. Or that he wrapped her blistered feet and burnt skin after the heat had cooked her for hours beside him; her caretaker. They would never know Ky and she didn't want them to. They didn't deserve to.

But a part of her did. She sighed and pressed her head to the shower wall. Eyes burning and closed tightly, she held her breath for as long as she could and then let the breath go very slowly, before straightening. As much as her broken soul screamed for her mate, she could do nothing to save him now. She didn't even know if he still lived... and even if he did, they had no way of knowing where he was, or how to get to him; much less how to pull him from the First Order's clutch...she sighed. Not that anyone would help her, save the General. Maybe Chewie...but she wasn't about to get her hopes up.

"I am entering, Jedi, don't kill me." A dry sarcasm bit the air and she turned around to see the zabrak from Chewie's crew undressing. She frowned, frazzled and tired and unsure as to why the zabrak was announcing her entrance. "Don't want you to force choke me or something." She winked with a sharp grin before starting up the shower and beginning to rinse down.

"Right." Rey rolled her eyes and snapped back, "Now that I'm "converted" to the darkside I'm strangling people left and right. Gotta assert my dominance."

There was a silence as the zabrack turned to stare at her in shock. Rey bitterly chose to ignore her and began rubbing soap into her hair. It was a difficult task. She hadn't showered in ages, and her hair, though brushed daily, was still oily and tangled so the soap was more likely to simply fall from her hair than wash it. It would take hours to dry as well.

"I called you, Jedi. Not Sith." A quiet reply tripped across the showers and her gaze snapped to the intense yellow glare the zabrak was shooting her way. "And I was simply warning you of my position because you are a warrior and I live with warriors and I know better than to startle one. Force or not."

There was a communal silence between the two for several moments as Rey appraised her, before she gently tipped her head back into the water and quietly replied,

"Apologies."

"Accepted," The zabrak's tone was back to light and flippant like the flip of a switch. "Have you been thinking of any names?" She grinned.

Rey found herself staring again, "You gonna wash the soap out or just leave it there for looks?" The other woman teased. Rey snapped out of it and began scrubbing again.

"Um...no, I haven't thought of names yet." She was still shocked at the woman's interest. Was she attempting...friendship? Rey hadn't had that since Ky...and Finn and Poe before him...Poe was rekindling friendship...but Finn had left, possibly forever, and she might never see Ky again. Her stomach twisted. She had no idea how to be friends. "I'm only five weeks along…" She muttered. She hadn't even started showing yet...why would she have a name picked out?

"Six, by my reckoning." The zabrak flashed a white grin and winked, "And I' m never wrong."

"Never?" Rey raised an eyebrow at her reproachfully.

"Never." She shook her head definitively. "I'm perfect. An angel. The embodiment of flawless absolution.I'm a dream come true."

A disbelieving laugh bubbled up from Rey's throat and she grinned.

"Does it hurt?" The other woman raised a sharp brow.

"What?" Rey turned off the shower head and began to towel down.

"You're face." The zabrack began to dry as well. "You smiled and I was just wondering if it hurt your face or anything."

Rey smiled softly at that. A bittersweet smile. One that grinned at the irony the zabrak had pointed out, but equally was softened by the memory of a similar conversation she'd had with her mate….about his cynical perspective of life. The zabrack held up her hands in surrender. "Not commenting on smiles. Got it. Smiles bad...well...maybe not smiles, but smile- _talk_ bad. Got it. Don't worry, I'm a quick learner. I'll figure it out!"

Rey snorted and rolled her eyes, at she pulled her pants on.

The zabrak dressed alongside her and as they pulled their shirts over their heads she asked.

"You want a drink? I'll buy."

"Sure-" Rey started and then a hand flew to her still flat stomach. "No! I mean, nevermind, no thanks."

"Good choice." the zabrak nodded approvingly.

"Were you…?" Rey stared at her incredulously, "Where you testing me?"

The other woman shrugged unashamedly. "I'm a medic. I do what I want."

Rey snorted as she shouldered her clothing bag, "Sounds like one of Finn's bad T-shirt ideas."

"I want one!" The woman exclaimed. "I need one! On the front: **I' m a medic** on the back: **I do what I want.** Yes! I need it! Holiday must-wish. Oh, yes!"

Rey braided her hair in one long wet braid down her back and shook her head in quiet mirth as she left.

"Wait!" the medic called after her, rushing up to her side, "So drink's a no, but dinner? Baby's gotta eat too." She raised her eyebrows to sell the bit.

"It's 1:00 a.m. and I don't even remember your name." Rey shook her head at the ridiculousness of it all.

"I was like the first person you met in like seven years and you don't even remember my name? Wow, I should have double checked for a head injury."

"I met other people at home!" Rey insisted, "Traders and, barterers, and...people…" She sighed at the pitiful defense. "Besides, I wasn't really in the state of mind to be making friends when I met you." She muttered, remembering the horrific sensation of being cleaved in two...the emptiness that she had only now begin to bear with any sort of dignity.

"Fair enough." Ophi shrugged. "I'd offer to get you drunk over it and we could laugh and cry together about our life problems...but your mate insured that you-" she pointed at Rey, "Should not be getting drunk. Not for another couple of months." Rey rolled her eyes, "Oh, yeah, and don't stress either, cause it's bad for babies."

Rey stared at her blankly rage just beginning to simmer. Don't stress? Don't worry? It's only that your other half is halfway across the universe, dead at the hands of his worst nightmares or being torn apart by them. It's only that your child is somewhere in the vast expanse of space; alone and vulnerable to whomever might have an interest in a small, weak child who had no one to defend him. It's only that the galaxy insisted on tearing itself apart in some new gruesome war generation after generation, and your family has no way to escape it simply because they're force sensitive. Oh, by the way, don't stress or you'll mess up your second kid too.

She opened her mouth in a snarl.

"Ahh! MadRey is worse than SadRey! Just kidding! A joke! Funny! Haha!... Not funny. Not at all. Who would make such an insensitive joke?! Me?! What?! No! I would never! I'm against...jokes...got it. Baby jokes: bad. No baby jokes...yo' mama jokes? Those cool? You good with those? Cause let me tell you, after the mother that I had? I've got some good ones! Here let me show you!-" And the zabrak continued that way all the way to the mess hall.

Rey was too dazed by the sheer about of chatter that was coming from the woman. Their child said more that Ky and Rey combined, and she was unaccustomed to adult conversation...though this hardly counted.

She did enjoy the food though...and grudgingly...the company. It felt good to not be alone. At least for these few hours in the deep of the night...when the hours were longest and the silence heaviest. She was clean, and she was full, and she laughed some. She was...almost content in that moment. Almost.


	28. Stupid

_**Okay! I'm back! Thanks for sticking with me! Here's another chapter that will end light heartedly! Aren't you proud of me? It will be heading back to my death, despair and desolation/destruction; don't worry, I'm still the same D.! ;) But you all deserve some happy stuff interspersed! Plus, it's good to stretch my writing! :) I hope you enjoy! Y'all are my favorites!**_

 _ **-D.**_

Finn thought he talked a lot. He really did. Of course, he'd mellowed out since Rey died… everyone had. But even now, when he'd sell parts, people claimed they simply bought the junk to shut him up. He was a talker. He thought.

That was before, though; before he met the kid.

The son of Kylo Ren was nothing like his father. Nothing. Which was good. Cause Finn probably would have turned him over to the bounty hunters if he had been. He even contemplated it now sometimes… but he couldn't do it...even as much as he hated the monster-the murderer- that slaughtered his best friend… he couldn't find it in himself to turn the kid over. He just couldn't do it.

There were rewards all over the place. Hundreds of thousands of units. Bounty hunters all over the place, looking for the boy. The son of Kylo Ren. Even the First Order. Once a troop of storm troopers had marched by and it was all Finn to do to keep his hand over the boy's mouth and carry him away, smothering curses that the child should definatly not know, and holding back little fists of fury. The kid had cried for hours after that encounter.

At first Finn didn't get it. Why would Kylo Ren's kid hate storm troopers? The Knight certainly never harbored any love of them, but he never hated them...he was never afraid of them...why was his son?

But then he started to see it. The slight accent the kid had, his mannerisms. His obvious lack of social grace. The way he was never ashamed of chattering the ear off a listener, he had never been harshly rebuked for speaking. His big wide grins. His affectionate nature. The survival instinct that burned behind his hazel green eyes, betraying the fact that his heart might be soft, but his soul would grow up hard. He was not born to luxury. The kid hadn't grown up with the first order. He'd been raised hiding from it.

It shouldn't have been a big deal. Many high ranking officers found women to bed outside the first order, and the smart one's never let any living creature know if their lover was impregnated. Not if they cared for their position.

That child could be used to leverage or blackmail them-if they harbored any paternal instinct for them- or could be used to throw unrest among their subordinates. Rumors would start that they'd gone soft, or worse they were bedding the resistance. Then the officer would be fighting to maintain their rank for as long as they had it. It wouldn't end after that. If Kylo Ren had a child, it didn't surprise him that he'd hidden it from the public eye.

But it only made him hate the man more. This child meant that Ren had been hiding things from the First Order. Which meant that he was not entirely, without reserve, loyal to the First Order. Which meant that he killed Rey out of more than duty. It was personal. It made his blood boil.

Sometimes he would find himself watching the child hatefully for how much he resembled his sire. Even at five years old, he had his father's nose and mouth. He had the beginnings of his father's face shape, cleverly disguised by baby fat, and his father's dark hair framing his sun-browned skin. He hated that this was the child that Rey's killer loved. And he hated that he was beginning to grudgingly love this child too.

"Finn?" The boy rolled over in his sleeping bag to find the man next to him staring at him intently, "What?" he wrinkled his little nose curiously.

"Go back to sleep." Finn ordered gruffly, hoping that if he was grumpy enough he might scare the kid into being quiet and going back to sleep. It was the early hours of the morning, and even if Finn couldn't sleep, it would be helpful if the kid would.

"I'm done sleeping! I' m awake now!" The child started to sit up to prove his point and Finn pushed him back down, one of his hands large enough to cover the boy's entire chest. He swallowed thickly in shame for ever considering turning the child over to the Bounty Hunters. The child was defenseless. The boy grunted and tried to sit up again but Finn kept him pinned in his bag with his hand on his chest.

"That's not fair!" The kid mumbled grumpily.

"It's 1:30. Go back to sleep."

"Why are you so grumpy all the time?" The boy complained throwing his head back dramatically.

"I' m not grumpy all the time, I'm just grumpy at 1:32 in the morning."

"You were already awake!" The boy pointed out. "Are you one of those people who wakes up grumpy? My Daddy wakes up grumpy. But my Mommy wakes up happy. You should be more like my Mommy."

Finn rolled his eyes at the child-logic. He had no idea who mothered Sai, but she had to be insane. From what it sounded like-from comments the boy offered randomly- his mother was still in a relationship of some sort with the murderer, and Sai was nearly five years old. There were only two explanations for that. She was a slave. Or she was insane. And the one time he had made an offhand comment about Kylo using a bed-slave under his breath the child had given him a sharp look and said.

"You're not supposed to say something like that about a woman. She could kick your butt."

Apparently Kylo Ren was not using a bed-slave, and apparently this insane woman could hold her own against the Knight. Finn almost wondered every now and again if Sai was just a compulsive liar and his mother didn't even exist. She sounded impossible.

"Can we play poker? I wanna play poker." The child whined. Ever since he'd learned the game he' d wanted to play it whenever they were on autopilot.

"No. We can play 'sleep' now. Maybe poker in the morning."

"It is the morning!"

"It doesn't count as morning until at least six."

"That's not true."

"Are you on my ship?"

"Yeah, but-"

"Are you eating my food?"

"Well technically-"

"And you're five! How do you even know what the word technically means?"

"I'm five! Not four, stupid!"

"That's one year difference! That doesn't mean anything! And don't say stupid, it's not nice."

"You're not nice, stupid face."

"Sai."

"What are you going to do about it,stupidity- stupid-faced-stupid Finn?"

"Sai, go to bed."

"I already told you, stupid! I'm not tired!"

"I already told you, Sai. I don't care!"

"No you didn't!"

"What?"

"You didn't say that, you just made that up."

"No! I…! That's not what that means! I don't care if you' re not tired. You need to sleep!"

"Stupid." The child rolled over so his little back faced Finn and gave a huff of indignation.

"Sleep." Finn insisted.

"Stupid." he whispered.

Finn elected to ignore that one.

 _ **Please review!**_

 _ **-D.**_


	29. The Girl That Would Be His Undoing

**_Okay! Here we go again! Sorry for the long break between updates! Hope y'all are still there! ;)_**

 ** _-D._**

 **Past:**

 _Kylo knew she had created a bond of some sort. Even as he seethed and stormed out, leaving a fuming General Hux, he knew this would not bode well. Even as he fled to his chambers, head throbbing painfully from her attack, he could feel her sleeping consciousness if he reached for it. They were connected. This was not good._

 _He clicked the door shut behind him and leaned heavily against the closed door. The world was spinning around him dizzyingly and his force ached from where she'd wounded his defenses. Her power was incredible. Nearly impossible. He snarled and threw a huge force blast out into his chambers, subconsciously directing it into the walls to use later, if he ever had need. He poured the force of his fear and his anger and his immeasurable pain into the walls with a frustrated scream._

 _She had put so many things in his brain. Murderer, Monster, Killer, images; His father's face, shock twisted across it in the flickering light...but she had only seen his father's back...there was no way she could have thrown the image at him that only he saw. It was like a slap in the face. She used his own memory to throw at him….and she hadn't even realized it._

 _He roared and turned on the door with his fists, pounding the metal out until it groaned and caved. He sent a final kick into it and sent it flying out into the hallway. The backs of the guards could just barely be seen fleeing the scene. That girl, that scavenger, was intertwining herself into more than his mere force. She was connecting herself his his psych. His mind. His very being. The essence of his force. Her spirit was in the very first stages of melding with his. And once started it was impossible to stop._

 _He screamed in fury and picked up the beaten out door with the force and hurled it down the hallways. He was going to lose everything. Everything. Because of a scavenger with as much control over her nuclear force as a toddler might have over their speech. He growled and stalked over to his grandfather's shrine, snapping his helmet off and screaming at it._

 _"What am I supposed to do? How do I stop this!"_

 _Snoke's voice chuckled through his head and Kylo winced as his most recent memories were raked through. He bit his lip and sat down, to keep from falling as the Supreme Leader analyzed the girls attack...saw the images in Kylo's head that he so desperately wanted to put away. To never see again. The way the strangled girl had traced the side of his face. Just like his father-Han Solo- had as he died._

 _"Weak." Snoke sneered and it was all Kylo could do not to whimper pathetically and pull away like a kicked dog. The sudden mood shift was instant and swift as it always was. "You let her go. You should have killed her."_

 _"Forgive me master. I was weak." Kylo whispered, rage fled and left him with only fear and self-loathing._

 _"Yes." Supreme Leader agreed raking through Kylo's mind harsher than last time, just for good measure. The whimper blossomed and Kylo saw stars. He clenched his jaw shut against any more signs of weakness for his Master to use against him. "Find the girl." Snoke ordered._

 _"W-what?" Kylo floundered, the pain was too great, he couldn't think...couldn't function. Find the girl? He didn't want to find the girl, he wanted to stay as far away from her as possible! Being in close proximity would only strengthened the connection!_

 _"There's nothing to stop it now." His master noted irritably at Kylo's ignorance. "She's been connected to you for too long. Since you interrogated her...but she attached to your fear-"_

 _'You, you're afraid...you're afraid that you'll never be as strong as Darth Vader!'_

 _Kylo flinched even now and dug his fingers into the unforgiving marble of the bench. The Supreme Leader was being cruel in his mind-ravaging. He was reminding him there would be punishment for this weakness._

 _"-she attached to your fear...perhaps the strength of your dark force will pull her over. Yes….Bring her to me, my very young apprentice. She may be the next piece. Bring her to me and I will break her. If you are too weak to restrain her, kill her. But don't waste her life for no reason. She could be the key…."_

 _Snoke finally left to muse to himself, his connection in Kylo's head ever present but completely one sided. He'd had a connection to the Supreme Leader since he was an infant. He'd resisted it for years, because of his own weakness, his own foolish love for his family and their worship of the light...but when they had turned on him, the Supreme Leader had still been there. The only constant in his life. He sighed and stumbled over to his bed. Collapsing on it in exhaustion and not bothering to remove any robes or his boots or gloves._

 _As he succumbed to darkness he dreamed of the scavenger, face snarling and twisted in rage as she held a chain-a connection- to him. The chain was collared about his neck so heavily he couldn't stand for the weight of it….and above her collar was another collar-another connection- and the chain of that one was much thicker, much stronger and wrapped around the wrist of the Supreme leader. His Master laughed as she pulled on her chain, yanking Kylo towards her...towards the light and his neck was pulled violently against the hold of the Supreme Leader. His Master laughed and laughed as Kylo screamed and begged her to stop, begged his master to let him go, begged anyone to make this end. But Snoke simply laughed in morbid hysteria and held him in place as Rey pulled and pulled him in the other direction. Blood poured from his throat until the collars had severed his esophagus and he could no longer scream or beg, merely choked and wept and gurgled as crimson flowed up as from a mountain spring in the deepest pit of hell. Finally she gave one final scream and snapped his head clean from his shoulders._

 _He watched in morbid fascination and horror as his head bounced across the floor to her feet and she kicked it aside in disgust._

 _"Well done, my young apprentice." Snoke clapped, and a small bit of hope kindled in his belly, perhaps all the pain….perhaps it had been a test. Perhaps this had been to rid him of his weakness-but then she was stepping forward. And accepting his master's-her master's- praise...She was the apprentice….because...Kylo turned to look at his head, severed from his body, discarded across the throne room...he was dead. She killed him. Because he had been weak. Because he had been torn… and if the scavenger knew anything, it was what she wanted._

 _He turned to look at his Master in anguish. He would never have completeness in the Dark force that hummed so strongly in his veins. It was burning him from the inside out, and he would never harness that. Because of his connection to this scavenger. This girl was to be his undoing. And his Master knew it. He wanted the girl to ruin him...she was stronger...she was-_

 _He snapped awake, gasping. Heart pounding in terror and pain. A gloved hand came up to feel his throat reflexively and he breathed a sigh of relief to find his head squarely attached to his shoulders._

 _Then came the rage. She was to replace him. She was to kill him. He knew a force vision when he had one. This was one possibility of his future. This could happen if he didn't stop it. He had to kill her. Of that he was sure. Immediately he rose and stormed out to order a shuttle without putting any more thought into it. He didn't need to think. He needed to act. He would kill this scavenger before her connection was so strong that she killed him._

 _He would kill her._

 _He would not be weak._


	30. The True Power of Control

_**Hey guys! Okay, so here's another Jae chapter. We've got something really interesting coming up next chapter, so stay tuned! Sorry, we seem to have kit a lull...please stick with me and the story! It's gonna be worth it! :)**_

 _ **-D.**_

Jae was intoxicated by her humiliation...drunk on rage. She threw the bed across the room as soon as she woke. Not the mattress, the entire frame. Then she proceeded to shatter the already cracked mirror and hurl the glass shards across the room. With a scream that could have shattered iron she turned on a wall and pummeled it, breaking her fingers and fists and the smooth black granite along with them. Knees and ankles fractured and snapped as she turned the wrath of her remaining limbs on the wall. Finally her legs gave way beneath her and she lay, broken, bloodied and burnt out. _ **Finished.**_

Her eyes flickered shut and she took a deep breath- honing her hatred, focusing her fury- and let it go. She cooled. Let the fire eat itself, sat up slowly, relishing in every moment of pain she was given. Lessons. Pain was lessons. She forced her fractured knees to bend and crossed them, straightened her spine and meditated in the dark. The sanctuary of submersion in power and pain. _**Peace.**_

She had lost. She would move on. She would not lose the next duel. Duel of Force. No one beat her in Force. No one. She allowed herself to be overcome by the dark force, lulled into it. She remembered the scarred, blind face of her opponent and imagined crushing his hairless skull in upon itself with her force. She imagined making the large, broad frame of the disgraced Knight writhe in agony as she lit every nerve in his body afire with the heat of his own dragon. _**Vengeance.**_

When she was calm enough she pulled on his reserves set in the walls of the chamber and allowed the red snapping dragon to dwell in the pit of her stomach as her ice cold fury stormed around it. She donned his power and paired it with her own power and did not stop until she was nearly overcome and bursting with power at the seams. Then she began to finger the chords that designed his power. It was seven years old, but some chords would never leave. _ **Search.**_

She found pain, and memories, shame and terror. He harbored guilt ridden love for his family...but it was not enough to overcome their rejection of him. The names Father, Mother, Uncle, Master, Han Solo tore through his power wreaking havoc and tearing him apart, feeding rather than resolving his conflict. She found the memory of murdering Han Solo and hummed victoriously. This was painful for him. It haunted him. She would beat him with it. **_Leverage._**

She continued on. She was surprised to find a thick, heavy chord, much larger than the others that sang to her as she plucked it, of Snoke's power. She followed it back and found the link to his earliest memories...jealousy twisted in her painfully. Snoke had found him as an infant and wooed him over. The Supreme Master had always been their for Kylo Ren. Always offering the path that he should follow, always whispering promises intermingles with the punishments. She traced the force bond all the way through to the last time he stored energy in the walls here...the chord remained unbroken. **_Strong._**

But..in this last memory...there was more...there was another...a much younger force bond. The power on the other side of that bond pulsed powerfully and chaotically, no control, no direction. She frowned and stroked it, gasping as it fought against her, even seven years later...it was Light. **_Revolting._**

 _She killed him….She was stronger...so much stronger...he was dead….begging them to stop….she was...Scavenger...his undoing… He must kill her._

Jae grinned as she found the memory. Force bonds were a beautiful weapon. Weapons that cleaved sinew from flesh and soul from body. She examined everything about him there was to know and found where to hurt him. Where to wound him. Where to break him. And where to destroy him. **_sLaughter._**

She could feel Master Snoke observing her from the corner of her mind but he did not intervene or speak, allowing her to do what she did best. **_Submerge._**

This was why she was stronger. This was why she was better. Her predecessor was powerful and raging but tumult and conflicted. She was powerful and mad, but controlled and perfected. He was a red snapping dragon and she was a cunning frozen lance that would pierce his heart and freeze his soul. She felt herself go numb and her Master grinned in her mind. **_Impressive._**

 ** _Finished._**

 _ **Peace.**_

 _ **Vengeance.**_

 _ **Search.**_

 _ **Leverage.**_

 _ **Strong.**_

 _ **Revolting.**_

 _ **sLaughter.**_

 _ **Submerge.**_

 _ **Impressive.**_

This was true power. _**Control.**_

 _ **Control.**_

 ** _Author's note: Dat Joker reference tho! Anyone catch it? XD I was just writing Jae and the thought came to mind that she's a lot like Health Ledger's Joker. Careful calculated and cruel chaos. Yup :) gotta love her! ;)_**

 ** _-D._**


	31. The Making of a Menace

**_Okay y'all. Getting into some serious stuff..._**

 ** _WARNING: This contains more acknowledgment of childhood abuse and rape and is a bit less vague than before. PLEASE do not read this if it is going to hurt you! I want you all to be safe as readers and don't want to bring up pain for any of you. The content in this chapter is for character development and explanation._**

 ** _ALSO: This is told from the perspective of an eleven year old child who is fighting for his life. All he knows is the battle for survival, and as such he does not understand how to process or accurately comprehend things. He's logical, not emotional and emotion and empathy are vital for understanding._**

 ** _The only genuinely logical response to situations like these is that:_**

 ** _it is NEVER the victims fault._**

 ** _If you or a family member/friend have experienced any form of abuse or assault, verbal, sexual or emotional, it is not your, or their fault. The perpetrator is the one to blame. Also, please be aware that different people react and process differently, so if you ever find out that a friend or loved one was abused in the past, take them seriously, assure them of your love for them, and let them take whichever direction to healing that they see fit (save suicide or harm to themselves or others)._**

 _ **If you or a loved one would like to call someone this is the National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-4673. Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is ask for help. **_

_**Please remember to love those around you**_ **no matter what** _ **and take care of them in the ways that they need; not just the ways that you feel most comfortable with. This world is full of wickedness and pain, but we each hold the potential and choice to bring grace, truth and love into it.**_

 ** _Any views expressed by characters or situations arising in this chapter are not the views of the author._**

 ** _-D._**

 _Armitage Hux scrambled over the back, knobby knees scraping against the gravel and shredding the skin clean off his pale joints. He bit his lip and didn't make a sound as the formidable figure of his father strode by, blaster gripped firmly in his hands, and a black jacket strained across his immensely broad shoulders. Armitage had inherited his mother's thin, pale and sickly frame, although his father's flaming hair which, at this point in the man's life, was gray and white streaked with hints of red along his temples brow and beard, red brushed as though stained in rusty blood. Steely grey eyes scoured the area for the boy, but Armitage held his breath and lay frozen in the little alcove. Unmoving. Unflinching._

 _Finally Brendol Hux stalked away, dangerous curses heavy from his lips, promises of later pain and punishment for the small thief. Armitage always paid the price, no matter who actually did it, it was Armitage who wore the brunt of the blow every time. It was better that way. He did not have much to offer the other orphans to buy their loyalty, but he won them over by taking their punishments. Someday, they would love him more than they feared him father. That was the plan._

 _His father had brought his Cadets here, of which Armitage was one. The final ten were about to be decided,...only one more Cadet had to be killed. Hux had already killed his to earn his place among the Finalists, but that wouldn't prevent his father from punishing him to the very brink of death...he just wouldn't kill him._

 _When he was certain that his father had indeed left, and was not merely lurked out of sight, ready to pounce when he emerged, Hux continued his escape, knife and bread clutched tightly to his skeletal chest. The ash and charcoal gravel kicked up a dark dust into the dark crimson sky of Arkanis cocooned in thick sweltering clouds as he sprinted across the clearing._

 _He was going to change the outcome of the final ten. He had begun to win the loyalties of eight of the others. His own loyalty was, of course, dedicated to his own survival, and the last two orphans were the girl and Hoksu. One of them would have to kill the other, and the obvious choice was Hoksu. He was big, and mean, and cruel. He'd already attacked the girl several times just to frighten and hurt her, preferring to toy with her rather than simply kill her. Hux did not think he could win the loyalty of Hoksu...in fact, he didn't even want to. He was hedging his bets on the girl...but she still had a long way to go before she became the menace he knew she had the potential to be._

 _The girl was curled up on her side, dozing when he slid into her cave. Thick, gold spun hair twisted violently in dirty curls around her head, blood crusted over the left half of it. Her face was pale and gaunt, her body long and bone thin like the rest of them were at this point. They had been surviving and hunting each other for nearly six months now. Her clothes were little more than rags and her pants were stained in obvious blood he tried to ignore. It happened to all the girls...it happened to a lot of the boys as well at some point...it had happened to him._

 _"Phasma." He whispered shaking her awake, "Phasma, wake up!" She moaned and curled in on herself further. "Phasma!" He sighed in exasperation slapping the girl hard across the face. She snapped up and, despite her frame being twice that of his own prepubescent one and her all bones being caged in wiry muscles, she cowered in front of him. "I have bread." He said sternly. "Cut your hair and I'll let you have some of it."_

 _Huge blue eyes watched him suspiciously and a large, bony hand came up to touch her golden curls hesitantly._

 _He gave an exasperated sigh. "Phaz, you have to cut your hair if you want them to leave you alone."_

 _"Are you...still helping….me?" She murmured, her voice was soft and sweet like honey._

 _He glared at her, "What did I tell you about talking like that?"_

 _She glanced at the ground guiltily, "To not to…" She murmured in the same sweet tone._

 _"So stop!" He snapped._

 _"Okay…" She whispered softly. He sighed. This was going to be harder than he thought. But he needed her. She was bigger than most of the other orphans and faster than the one's bigger than her. She also needed something, and with his experience, even at eleven years old, he knew loyalty could be won if he gave her what she needed. This was an alliance worth building, even if she was a girl. Actually, especially if she was a girl. She was in a vulnerable position, and he knew that meant she would be more susceptible to his manipulative tactics as such._

 _"Here, cut your hair off and I'll give you a couple bites." he promised, offering her the knife he'd stolen from the General's Kitchen crew._

 _Her hands were shaky as she accepted the blade and brought them up to saw off her curls. She hesitated again and looked at him with large, pleading eyes._

 _"Cut it." He snapped._

 _Tears welled, but the first lock fell. A pile of gold began to grow as Armitage stuffed mouthfuls of bread into his dry mouth._

 _"Listen…" He said through a mouthful of bread, gestures for her to continue cutting when she stopped to stare hungrily at the bread in his mouth. "I'm helping you, kay? You want to know why you're the only other girl left alive?" He glared at her. "Cause you're strong and fast." He pointed at her with the bread. "But you're not smart, so you'll die too. Soon."_

 _Teary blue eyes dropped to the floor and he glared at her. "Look at me when I'm talking to you!" Her gaze snapped back up obediently._

 _"You're not smart. But I am smart." He said slowly, hoping she understood what he was saying. "And I'm not strong, but you are strong." He motioned for her to continue cutting. She complied. "So I'll make sure you survive here, and you make sure I survive here. I'll help you get into the final ten of the Commandant's Cadets and then we'll help eachother survive once we're in. Got it?"_

 _"How...How can you make sure I survive that far?" She whispered, shaking hands remaining to their task this time. He rewarded her an approving smile and a light burned behind her gaze again. Hope._

 _"You're a girl. Girl's don't survive here." He explained. Tears welled up to streak her face again. She knew that already. She was already dying. They would kill her slowly...taunting her, and torturing her and taking her apart piece by piece-if Hoks had anything to say about it- but they would kill her. "So you can't be a girl anymore." He shrugged as though that was the most logical conclusion._

 _She stopped cutting to stare at him in bewilderment. "You can't just make me not be a girl anymore."_

 _"Why not?" He challenged._

 _She gave a baffled look. "We're...different... than you… we're not made..." She flushed red and looked away._

 _"I know that!" He snapped, angrily. "I'm not stupid!" he glared again and stuffy more bread in his mouth. "But you have to stop acting like one. Show them you can be a man too and if you do it right, they'll be too scared of you to try anything."_

 _"And cutting my hair, that's supposed to help." She did not look like she believed him in the slightest._

 _"Yes." He nodded, offering her a chunk of bread when she had finished shearing the gold from her scalp. It was still patchy, but sheared so close to the scalp she wasn't as pretty or sweet looking. In fact she looked a bit deranged. He was satisfied that was a good start. She took the bread eagerly and stuffed the whole thing in her mouth. "It's a start. You gotta do more though. You gotta cut your hair and stop talking all quiet and stuff. Make sure you sound like you're in charge."_

 _"But then!..." She trailed off, gaze trembling… "Then they'll...do it...again."_

 _"Then fight them!" He snarled._

 _"I-!" She looked up at him in desperation. "I tried to!" She choked on her tears._

 _"No. You just try to get away." He gave her another piece of bread. She bit her trembling lip and accepted it. "You need to hurt them when they try things like that. Hurt them and don't stop hurting them. Don't try and get away, make them try and get away. Then they won't try it again, and if they do, hurt them again. They'll start associating trying to get you, with being in pain, and they'll avoid you. Although, " he amended," it's better to avoid it altogether than to have to fight in the first place, so you cut your hair;" He gave her more bread. "You walk right, and talk right and look them square in the eye when they look at you. You gotta learn how to be scary."_

 _"I can't just learn to be scary!" She protested through her full mouth. "Some people are just more scary than others."_

 _He sighed, "Why are you so stupid sometimes, Phaz!" her bottom lip quivered and he brought up a hand to slap her across the face again. Her head jerked to the side under his blow. His slaps where not light. "Stop! See! This is exactly what I'm talking about. You can't be like this. You need to be scary!"_

 _"I can't!" She wailed, flinching back, expecting another harsh blow._

 _"Here." He sighed sitting back on his heels with a sigh, this route was not working. "Do you think I'm scary?"_

 _She nodded timidly._

 _"Do you really think so, or are you just saying that because you want more bread?"_

 _"Well...I do want more bread...but you….you are scary."_

 _"Why?"_

 _"Because I'm hungry-"_

 _"No! Why am I scary to you!"_

 _"You...you're scary to everyone."_

 _"Why?" She looked at him like that was a trick question. "Phaz." he demanded, "Why am I scary?"_

 _"Because...because...You're in charge." She stuttered._

 _"Why am I in charge?" He pushed further. She opened her mouth, but couldn't find a good answer,_

 _"You...You just are!" She managed._

 _He sighed and frowned at her. Silent for a while, judging how best to persuade her and earn her loyalty...she was so afraid… he didn't know entirely how to deal with this gentle giant…_

 _"Phaz…"He decided on a gentler, more vulnerable approach...she had been most formidable when she was protecting Middy, the little dark haired girl who died last month. Perhaps if he was careful, he could worm his way into her protective instinct and work out from there… maybe he'd have to risk two way trust._

 _"Why am I in charge? I'm six inches shorter than you, and fifty pounds lighter. I'm not strong, and I'm always short of breath 'cause of my lungs. I'm skinny, pale, weak, and generally useless. So tell me, Phasma, why am I in charge?" It was a risky play, but if he had judged her correctly it was the best one._

 _She just blinked round blue eyes at him… "I don't know...you just...are."_

 _He nodded patiently, "Because I make it that way. Because I don't back down and I bluff."_

 _She gaped at him. "You...bluff?"_

 _"Of course I bluff! How else would I get to the top of the food chain? And that is what you're going to do too." He pointed at her demandingly. "You're going to bluff being tough until you are? Got it?"_

 _She gave a hesitant nod. "I think so…"_

 _"So cut your hair, walk straight with your shoulders back, glare at people and don't Ever. Back. Down. Win your fights and talk mean, and don't cower anymore. Got it? No being sweet, or pretty, or trying to take care of people. Stop being a girl. Understand?"_

 _"Yes." She whispered softly. He glared at her tone and brought his hand up to slap her again, but she caught his hand in her strong grasp stared him right in the eye and snapped, "Yes." Newly forged steel glinted in her eyes and they narrowed menacingly. He grinned as she let him go and he tossed the rest of the loaf to her. She eagerly devoured it and he gave a small smirk of satisfaction as he watched her, his new ally._

 ** _Again, I can not express this enough. IT WAS NOT PHASMA'S fault because she was "pretty" or "didn't fight hard enough." Things like that should never happen. It is never the victims fault. Never. _**

**_I love you all and hope that this wasn't too painful or offensive._**

 ** _-D._**


	32. Nothing At All

_**ANNND I'm back! And officially on X-mas break! Hopefully that will mean more writing! :)**_

 _ **I watched the midnight premier for Episode Eight and I was one of those people who ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT. But I get that some people didn't, that's okay too. :) Heads up, some things from Episode Eight WILL be showing up in this fanfic, but I will put a spoilers warning up on the chapters what contain such spoilers and it won't be for a while, so hopefully y'all will have time to watch it before then! :)**_

 _ **Also, some things WILL NOT be in this fanfic, 'cause it jsut doesn't fit, but I'm not telling you what those things are yet because then I'd have to put a warning in here. ;) I'm trying to stay as cannon as possible, don't worry. Just remember that it is fanfiction, though. ;)**_

 **I hope you all enjoy! Please review!**

 **-D.**

Hux woke with a start and a gasp, looking around his room disoriented. He blinked at the pain behind his eyes, but it subsided after a few moments and his skull felt lighter than it had in months. He'd had the seizure. He closed his eyes firmly and took a deep breath, grounding and orienting himself before he opened them.

He'd had a seizure, he was wearing an athletic work out outfit rather than his uniform and he was in bed. So Phasma had found him, then. He looked around his room. Everything was in place again, and, although he could feel that he had bitten through his lip, he was surprised to find he was otherwise unharmed. Bruised, certainly, but not broken.

How much had he missed? He sat up in alarm.

There was a conference of General's he needed to be at, he was supposed to have met with the Supreme Leader this week, the new Ren was here-killing his troops-, they launched an attack on the Resistance trade route soon, there was a new inventory and several training appointments he had to supervise for the new troops, and Kylo Ren was in the cells while Hux lay here sleeping. He nearly lept out of bed and scrambled over to his desk to grab his datapad. He needed to see the date and read his messages. Had Phasma covered for him? Where there any suspicions?

He fumbled for a pen and scribbled down the date, relieved that he'd only been out two days this time. He snatched a protein bar from his top drawer and spun around to get his uniform when he froze, blue eyes widened barely a fraction as they met wide brown one's and he stilled completely, matching a woman in his room's nonexistent movement.

His mind spun for an answer to who she was and why she was here. Chess. She had played chess with him, before the seizure, she was a bloody mastermind at it too...bed-slave, she was a bed-slave who obviously had not been broken yet….why was she here? His surprised blank expression lowered into a glower.

"What are you doing here?" He snapped advancing towards her furiously … and frightened...how long had she been here? By his bed...watching him sleep...she could have killed him so easily...what had she seen? Had she seen the seizure? Why was she still here?!

"I-I didn't want to leave you alone after the seizure…"She stuttered. Pain pounced on his chest as he was so tense he could hardly breathe. She had witnessed the seizure. She knew his weakness. No one alive new his weakness, save Phasma. He needed to kill her.

She lept nimbly from her chair by his bed, his copy of Emrin's Rhetoric and Logic in Psychology tumbling from her lap among other copies of his literature. She was wearing his clothing. The sight stopped him dead in his tracks and he simply glared, and stared, unable to quite explain why this affected him the way it did. Not even sure how it was affecting him anyways. He shook whatever it was from himself and grabbed her by the shirt collar, yanking her closer. She was so weak he actually had to keep her from flying into him as he yanked her towards him. Something twisted inside him and an old instinct, an ancient, dead, and weak instinct flared in sickening pity whispering, _She won't make it._

He killed it. He didn't care.

"Who are you?!" He snarled, inches from her face. His heart was kicking his ribs rebelliously.

"A-Ahlai!" She whimpered, eyes blown wide enough to see the whites all the way around the dark irises.

"Who are you, Ahlai?!" he roared in her face and she gasped in terror. From where he held a fistful of her shirt-his shirt- he could feel her own heartbeat thudding as fast as his own. She opened her mouth to say something, but her voice was petrified in her throat and all she could do was stare at him with those beautiful, dark brown eyes and he hated them, because they were beautiful and innocent and afraid and nothing that beautiful would survive. The thin hands clawed at his fist and did nothing; these hands were slender, and dainty and feminine and had no strength in them. They didn't even scratch his own hands. Hands that had clawed their way back from hell itself.

"Are you here to kill me, Ahlai?" He hissed. "Spy on me? Gather intel? Manipulate me?" He was shaking with what was a strange mixture of rage and fear.

"N-No…" She whimpered, tears brimming in those large dark orbs but yet again, refusing to fall.

"Then why are you here?" He snarled, pulling her even closer so their breaths mixed and she could do nothing but stare at the malice in his gaze.

She opened her mouth to say something again, but she choked on her words as though they were venomous.

"Why!" He all but screamed.

"To-to please you….my...my charge." She gave a strangled rasp of a reply.

He pushed her away from him like she'd burned him and recoiled she let out a small cry as she was thrown back against the wall and crumpled to the ground... _his mother's bruised face and stained skirts_ poisoning his memory, _the wide round eyes of a girl with blonde hair and a knife blade cutting close to her scalp... his father's hands...and he was too strong….and-_

Hux stumbled back from her, trying to maintain his breathing and keep from hyperventilating. He was always susceptible to stages of panic when he woke up from a seizure...the hormones in his brain where simply overwhelming him. He just needed to recover.

And he could not do that here, where the girl was staring at him with those wide frightened eyes and trembling limbs and frantic pulse he could practically hear from here. Or was that his own heart? He was so easily overcome by emotion! Vulnerable. Weak. He sneered at himself and snatched his protein bar off the floor before making a brisk escape out the door.

He glanced at the time. 2:37. Phasma would be training until 4. He all but ran to the gyms. She had a lot to explain. Why she left a woman, who'd tried to kill him the first time she met him, in his room whilst he was unconscious was at the top of his list. Leaving a woman in his room in general was somewhere in there too...although it would never be spoken aloud.

R******************************************R

Back in the room, Ahlai's tears finally broke free and she pressed her hands to her mouth to quiet the sobs, rocking back and forth in the corner of the room. She could take it no more. Her family was dead. Slaughtered by the First Order. She had nothing. Her life was in ruins around her. She had nothing. Her dreams were broken fantasies and worn out tunes and reality was a nightmare. She had nothing. Her charge was insane and there was nothing; _nothing_ she could do against him to protect herself. She was at the mercy of his whim. She had nothing.

She was once a someone. An intellectual. A daughter. A lady. A human.

Now she was nothing.

Nothing at all.


	33. The Headless Horsemen

_**Alrighty! Here's our first look at the Knights of Ren as I've designed them! A few of them are from the Concept art of the Cannon Knights of Ren, but basically everything else is original and my own creation. :) All new species so far are cannon. :)**_

 ** _And this, Ladies and Gentlemen, is why the Sith have the Rule of Two. ;)_**

 ** _-D._**

"All I'm saying is that even Kylo Ren is a somewhat better alternative to her! She's too powerful!" Furia Ren hissed, feline ears twitching in agitation and long tail jerking from side to side like a furious snake. The Cathar was rolling back and forth on the balls of her feet, muscles quivering beneath fur that stood on end all the way up her spine. Zevach Ren, her human mate touched her shoulder gently, rubbing small circles at the base of her neck, and leaning down to whisper something in her ear. A low growl vibrated from the roots of her throat and glinting green eyes snapped up to glare into Zevah's obsidian orbs. Their conversation continued through their force bond silently as the argument continued on around them.

"She is too powerful...and she's only a child." Maveric noted in agreement with Furia's fear.

"Not to mention absolutely insane!" Wincen chimed in.

There was a chorus of agreements until the ancient voice of Parca Ren rasped,

"Is insanity a problem?" As she brought a vial of thick crimson liquid to her weathered paper white lips. Everyone hushed quiet although it was obvious the mates were still arguing mentally.

"The dark force, breeds on insanity." The rasp continued after her throat had been wet with red. "True power can only be found when you let the force feast on your mind."

There was communal silence as the knights gathered around the table glanced around uncomfortably. None of them were quite as addicted or consumed by the force as Parca. Power could be found elsewhere, with fewer side effects. Insanity was the end result of any one power...but most preferred to bide their time in reaching it rather that grasping at it and giving themselves over to it.

It was finally Dante Ren who broke the silence and even the bickering mates ceased their argument to listen to what the old human had to say. He was not talented in any style or stance, and did not possess slews of force like the majority of them, but Dante Ren held more knowledge on the force, it's history, users, and rituals than possibly even the Supreme Leader himself. The Monk had dedicated his life to the study of the dark side.

"Was Kylo Ren, our most powerful leader, also insane?And young? And powerful? I will not take a stance on the issue of insanity, but the scripts are clear; whomever is the strongest and bests all others by minimum of 2 of 3 duals is Master of the Knights of Ren. There is no alternate. If she bests Kylo in the next two duals we will all recognize her as Master of the Knights or pay the forfeit." The silence grew again. Forfeit was treasonous. And Treason meant execution.

"And if she doesn't beat him?" Wincen asked, raising a brow. "What then?"

"The Kylo Ren is still our Master." Dante sighed and looked down at the grain of the wooden table.

The room erupted again.

"He can't be our Master again!"

"He's too damaged now!"

"He's a traitor!"

"What if I challenge him?" Wincen gave a wicked grin and the room went quiet again. Ages ago it was Wincen alone who could hold his own against the Master.

"You still do not have the rights to challenge." Dante pointed out, "Jae earned those rights because she beat all of us in dual. The only member she has left to best is Kylo, the Master."

"She cheated against me!" Wincen roared, leaping to his feet. "Those rights should be mine! She stole them from me by cheating in our dual."

"She didn't cheat you, Wincen." Furia rolled her eyes. "She overwhelmed you with her force."

"You worthless little-"

Zevach's axe slammed into the table with a crack resounding like thunder in the room, wedging itself into the center of the table. He didn't speak, but flipped his hood back to give a smouldering glare at The Sniper, daring to finish that sentence directed at his wife.

"I'm sorry...what was that, Wincen?" Furia taunted lips twitching in a taunting smirk. "I couldn't hear you over the sound of my mate _putting you back in your place._ "

Wincen lunged forward Rafiq close by his side as always, but the mates were already in position, Furia's ears flattening to her skull and fangs baring as Zevach's powerful shoulders coiled begging for release a grim and dark grin twisting both their mouths in sync.

"Stop!" Dante shouted as Maverick tore the pairs apart. The large zabrak placed himself in the divide and snarled at both sides as they backed down slowly. "Enough! This is pointless feuding! Wincen! Furia! Zevach! We all lack the rights to challenge Kylo Ren even if he seems to be easy picking. If any of you think you can best Jae's force then we can talk about another challenge. Anyone?" He looked around irritably as everyone snarled and muttered under their breath, but no one spoke up. "Didn't think so. At the end of this dueling triune we will have Master. Either a child or a blind man. Then we can talk about usurping. Not before. I'm calling an ending to this meeting, there is nothing further more to discuss."

"Who died and put you in charge?" Wincen snarled. "Last I remember, you were the least qualified to lead us. You can't beat a single one of us in anything, old man-" He advanced threateningly and Dante took a step backwards. Wincen was right. He could make quick work of the old man.

But then Maverick was there, gripping Wincen's arm with a heavy hand and a dark scowl. "Stand down, Wincen."

"I don't take orders from you." Wincen snapped.

"Stand down or I will break your legs and make you sit down." Maverick threatened lowly. Furia let out a low, feline growl and bared her teeth again, Zevach pulled his axe from the table menacingly and Parca gave a mad cackle force writhing around her like a lightning storm.

Rafiq's eyes widened and he stepped behind Wincen. Wincen glared at his fellow knights as they all ganged around him and spat on the table before spinning and storming out, Rafiq hanging close to his coat tails.

Dante sighed and relaxed a bit.

"Are you alright?" Maverick asked him.

"Yes…" He sighed again. "Does it always have to be a fight?"

"Fighting is good." Parca shrugged as she got up slowly and crept from the room. "Fighting means fear. Fear makes fierce. And the fierce make a fabulous feast." SHe cackled to herself as she left.

Furia and Zevach glanced at each other before agreeing on something and leaving without any verbal acknowledgement of the other knights.

Maverick and Dante shared a look, before the latter turned to the youngest member of their current company.

"Do you have any thoughts on the matter, Sorhen?"

Sohren twitched.

"Nope." Before nimbly leaping to his feet and exiting with deceptive and athletic grace.

"Was he even paying attention?" Dante threw his hands in the air.

"Probably not." Maverick shrugged. "Kids these days." as thought that explained everything.

More thoughts of Jae writhed through Dante's mind and he sighed again pinching the bridge of his nose as though pained.

"You look like you need a drink." Maverick raised dark brows.

"And retirement." Dante quipped bitterly joining Maverick as they walked to the bar.

"Let's settle for a drink first." Maverick grinned.

"Fine. I won't jump ship yet. But it's coming!" He raised a pointed finger. "Mark my words I will not make it through another recruit."

"Mmmhmmm." Maverick quirked an eyebrow and continued on, unconvinced.

 _ **Tell me what you think! Please Review!**_

 _ **-D.**_


	34. Old Habits, Friends and Fears

Hux was almost to the training room when he passed the Knights of Ren as they left an empty conference room. They left in pairs and he ducked behind another conference door as they passed. The Cathar-human couple slipped into his hideout and he barely escaped their notice as they began passionatly locking lips. He sneered and slunk down the corridors unnoticed. There was not many places to hide on these ships, but he knew how to disappear as well as he knew how to stand out.

Finally he was at the entrance of the Captains Gyms. Every captain ranked was allowed to use this facility, but none used it more than Phasma. He took a deep breath to settle his anxiousness from his previous encounter and ran a shaking hand through his hopelessly mussed hair that had suffered two days of unconsciousness, wet. He gave up and entered with a dangerous glide to his step and glint to his eye. He stalked into the gym and immediately spotted Phasma, a good head taller than many of the other Captains, practicing with her long silver spear- her weapon of choice-in a powerful and precise storm of movement and violence. There were a few other Captains at the shooting range, but the other matts where empty. He stopped at the head of the matt and waited for her to finish her routine. She was at the tail end of it anyways.

She wore tight black athletic pants with a metallic, silver design down the hip and thigh and a nondescript black tank top that allowed her arms more movement that her armour. It also forced observers to notice that ever movement she made triggered a quake of muscle to roll fluidly and dangerously across her shoulders and arms. Every movement was harsh and cruel, and her staff sung in the air in ferocious velocity.

She had discovered staff fighting quite by accident, he remembered. In her final battle with Hosku on Arkanis she had picked up a long stick and used it to keep Hoksu at a safe distance from her as he continually tried advancing on her. Halfway through the battle however she discovered she could inflict quite a bit of damage from that distance as well, and taught herself the offensive she needed to beat Hoksu down until she could work her way around him and snap his neck clean through. He was her first kill. And he didn't even deserve it. He deserved to be one of her thoughtless ones. One of the strokes of her absent minded power that she never gave second thought to. He didn't deserve the fear he evoked in her. He didn't deserve to be a part of the making of the menace. He deserved to be a nobody, someone she never thought of again… but as it was, he was someone she thought of often. It infuriated Hux. Hoksu deserved to die in so many more agonizingly painful ways than a simple snap of the brain stem.

Phasma had grown past that now, however, and Hux knew he should have as well. No man in their right mind would touch this beast ever again. Hux didn't know why it bothered him so much...Phasma didn't need his protection. He scoffed at the idea and threw it away, settling back into his rage at her- rather than for her- as she finished her routine and held her pose perfectly, eyeing him cautiously with her unmasked face, blue eyes observing him carefully as though trying to predict which direction he might erupt in.

"General." She nodded, slowly breaking pose and swirling her baton casually.

"Captain…" He sneered, circling her slowly. "I took you for a great many things, but traitor was not one of them."

Surprise rippled across her open face. This. This is why she needed to wear a mask. He continued his rant without allowing her to defend herself.

"Killer, yes. Thief, perhaps. Backstabber? Never." She opened her mouth in alarm to contradict what he was implying, but once again he cut her off, rage simmering beneath his skin and lighting his veins afire. "So is it that you were simply too stupid to realize that you were being looped into the despicable plot against my life? Or are you actually an accomplice in this ardent and agonizingly, painfully, pitiful attempt on my life? Are you unwittingly stupid? Or are you in fact worthless, backstabbing, traitorous scum that I need to wipe from my shoes-"

"Armitage!" She snapped and his teeth clicked together in surprise. She had not used his first name in years. "You talk too much." She snarled, throwing a second, practice staff at him and taking up an aggressive stance.

He snatched it out of the air and twirled it in angry agitation, matching her stance and settling his weight into the familiar stance of sparring. A spear was her weapon, not his-he preferred a blastor for distance, but in close range his weapons were knives- but where they came from, anything and everything was a weapon and they held no difficulty in fighting with whatever happened to be in their hands at the time.

He lunged first. He always did.

Phasma blocked with ease and shoved him back with her mighty strength going straight for a winning blow when he stumbled back, but he ducked and spun beneath her lethal reach, striking her across the back of the knees and attempting to fall her. She kicked back and they fell away from each other, circling cautiously, eyes flickering to all points of weakness and advantage, steps soft and light and hearts settling into a familiar rhythm. This was what they were raised as, fighters, killers, survivors; living weapons with no shatter point or fragility left untouched or unforged.

Hux may have favored his more civilized way of life as a general and a professional who allowed others to complete the dirty work for him, but as long as Phasma was by his side, he would never be allowed to forget from where he came or what he was. He may hate combat, but he was born for it. Not mighty or strong like Phasma, but quick, lethal and cruel. Armitage was angry, agile and accurate.

He lunged again and they exchanged blows, the harsh crack of their practice staffs splitting the air like thunder and their panting became as desperate as the wind as they took it at another pace altogether; Armitage's pace. Quick parrying blows like lightning, then back to cautious circling and gauging like the quiet before a storm.

"Where you a part of the plot or not?" He demanded, swinging violently at her midsection. She blocked and send a bare foot into his stomach throwing him on his back with a whoosh as the wind fled his lungs. He rolled to the side just in time to dodge her staff crashing down upon his skull and threw himself into her kneecaps, feeling her swiftly.

"What plot?" She grunted backhanding him and sending him flying across the matt. He tasted blood on his lip and glared at her as she reached back for her weapon. A well aimed and restrained blow to the temple diverted her attention so he could steal her staff and use both against her.

"The woman you left in my rooms to kill me whilst I was unconscious, fool!" He snarled snapping his staff at her face. She snarled, and caught it in a mighty fist, yanking him off balance and throwing him to the ground with terrifying ease. He tried to roll away from her lethal grasp, but she was too fast and rolled stop him, pinning him with the strength of a python and twisting his staff in its grip to press firmly beneath his jaw. She leaned down to glare him straight in the eye and growled,

"I was not, nor will ever be, in any attempt on your life. And if you're paranoid enough to think _that_ woman could harm anything at all, it's not _I_ who is the fool."

"She pointed a blaster at me the first time we met." He snapped back stubbornly.

"Was the safety on?" She tilted her head to the side with a bitter smirk.

"I was...exposed." He hissed, quieter so their gathering audience could not hear. It was unusual to get to see both the General and Captain fight, especially each other. He wriggled beneath her, but she clamped down harder. "She knows things that no one knows!" He was shaking again, and it did not go unnoticed by Phasma, although she let it go unacknowledged.

"She saved your life before I got there. Why would she save your life only to take it?"

"I don't know," He sneered, "Why would-what do you mean she saved me?" He brought his knee up hard and threw her off him scrambling away from her death grip.

"I didn't get there in time." Phasma said vaguely, not betraying their topic of discussion to their audience and circled around in a crouched position, awaiting his next attack.

"How did she know how?" He returned just as vaguely, lunging and exchanging parrying blows.

"I don't know." Phasma panted as they fought, "She said something about an Anatomy Course Title."

"Course title?" Hux faltered and Phasma took advantage throwing him against the wall. He didn't even fight it and tapped out, confusion and curiosity twisting around his face. "How in the galaxy would she have a course title?"

Phasma shrugged, picking up both staffs and placing them back again. "I don't know, but she seemed to know what she was doing."

"Why would an educated woman be a-" He didn't finish the sentence for the intrigued ears listening but gave Phasma a pointed look.

She shrugged and muttered bitterly,

"Because she's a woman."

Something sharp twisted in Hux's rib cage but he chose to ignore it and rolled his eyes amusedly, "Oh come now Phasma, you're not stupid enough to actually think it's only women who-"

"Because she's helpless then!" Phasma hissed with surprising ferocity and it was all he had to not take a cautious step back. Rage and pain and agony flared in her eyes as memories, so many memories threatened to drown her and Hux floundered in his own and all they could do was stare; blue meeting blue, pain meeting pain, confusion, turmoil, helplessness.

Then, as though in sinc, their faces settled into blank masks of indifference, and the fire in their eyes flickered out.

"Why didn't you send her back?" Hux asked tonelessly.

"I figured you wouldn't have a problem sending her back to...that." Phasma shrugged as though they were discussing an uncomfortable family dinner. "So I left it for you." Because I couldn't. Hung in the air silently, and no one reached out to vocalize it.

"Of course." Hux nodded coldly. "That makes perfectly logical sense. Perhaps we ought to discuss this next time before we beat each other with sticks in your uncivilized manner, Captain." He sneered, picking up his protein bar from the floor and walking from the gym in dignified absolutely false illusion of indifference.

The Captain rolled her eyes and unwrapped her hands, picking up her bag and following him out in loyal, if a bit begrudging, duty.

"Eat more than that bar, Armitage." She muttered as they parted ways, "21 grams of protein isn't enough to make up for two days of not eating."

Then she lumbered off down the corridor to her rooms leaving him in the split off with a characteristic scowl and he frustratedly tore the wrapper off of the bar and bit off a large portion. He had better things to do than sit around and eat. Who died and left her in charge?

With that childish thought in his head he stomped back in his rooms before he lost the nerve. He needed to get in uniform before the meeting with the Generals and the Supreme Leader tonight, and one dark skinned bed slave with a half-cocked blaster, wide doe-like eyes and some non-descript education was not going to keep him from his own chambers. That was absurd, ridiculous and preposterous.

Though he hesitated outside the door and entered quietly anyways. Habit only. He told himself. Old habits die hard.


	35. Balance

_**Hey everyone! I'm alive! So sorry it's been such a long time since I published! Life got crazy hard... well...**_ **harder** _ **. Yes, I have seen Episode 8... and wow, I really enjoyed it... however... obviously a lot of things won't line up... like certain deaths that itotally didn't see coming... (anyone else suprised by that?) Anyways, I thought it was a good show, but I'm doing my own thing here. :)**_

 _ **Also... I love my Hux and enjoy laughing at their Hux. But their Hux is not my Hux. He's my very own, far more believable, instense by epic proportions sort of character. ;) In my humble opinion. XD**_

 _ **Again! So sorry for the months of silence... but I'm alive and kicking! I'm back!**_

 _ **Love you all! Enjoy! :)**_

 _ **-D.**_

Rey had spent may of her days with the General since being here. Days pouring over maps and running scenarios of her family's deaths through her head as she desperately tried to develop plans to save them all. She grunted and threw her stencil across the room with a frustrated scream.

Leia looked up from her work with a cautious frown and opened her mouth to say something but Rey threw her hands up and snapped,

"No! No! Don't you dare say something about the dark side right now!"

"I'm only concerned for your child-" Leia started gently.

"Well don't!" Rey cut her off. "Just don't. The baby is half Ky, so they were gonna have dark side anyways! And I know your family is set against dark force for all of time, but my family is not! Alright! And it's my family whose one the line here! So just, just stop!"

Everything in the room was hovering two inches off the horizontal spaces and the air hummed with Rey's power. Leia sent a comforting prob and Rey took a deep breath, filling her thoughts with Ky and his balance. She could see the frown on his brow and the tears staining his lashes from where they sprouted from tightly closed lids. She could trace the bead of sweat trickle down his temple and watch his lips quiver as though he was speaking to the force, not merely directing it. She could feel the tension of his strain not only in his coiled shoulders or powerfully clenched fists but over their force bond snapping and pulling at his control. She closed her eyes and she could see her mate, and she took a breath and she could smell his force, his balance, his strength.

She ignored, Leia's gentle probing as she leaned into the trance-like hum he was emitting as he let all his emotions, the dark and the light lap at his soul but refused to let any of them take him over. He felt, but restrained. He was both dark and light. Balance. She let the memory direct her own force and let her soul harmonize and swirl with the memory of his.

He soothed their agitation and equalized their pain with their love.

 _I remember both what I hate and what I love._

Rey leaned in further.

 _And love wins over. Every time._

Tears built up and she trembled.

 _When it comes to me or you-_

She missed him. Force, she missed him so much it hurt.

 _It's me for you. Every time._

She focused on that line over and over. Engraving it on her heart. She would give herself for her family every time. That's where the dark force belonged, focused on passion not power. It was a dangerous balance, fragile, but necessary. Power was so enticing, so addicting those with dark force had to remind themselves over and over what the dark force was really for, if they wanted to avoid being consumed by it.

Ky had become masterful at it. The Dark was a piece of him, not the whole. He wielded it like a mighty weapon, immeasurable strength...but the true strength came when he put it away, when he decided the love of his mate and child were more valuable than dwelling in the power of the dark.

She carefully swirled the dark, with him. and balanced the light, until she rose above both of them, with him, and they stood above their power, hand in hand. She looked at him and begged the memory in her mind that he might open his eyes.

His eyelids fluttered back revealing his dark sorrow filled eyes and she choked on her tears with a smile as she brought a hand up to trace the side of his face. Those inky dark eyes and the depth in them were so familiar to her. So comforting, so consuming. He was her balance. Her anchor. Her Ky.

As her trembling hand came up to touch his face though, she went through him and he faded from her sight. She bit her lip and steadied her breath, maintaining the control he had taught her and she had taught him. She shut her eyes tightly against the empty pain in her chest where he should have been and took a deep breath, still brushed by the memory of his scent. The grey washed over her and her control stabilized. She released her clenched hands and opened her eyes to find Leia staring at her with teary dark eyes. The same inky deep eyes filled to brim with the same sorrow and pain. She gave a gentle smile and whispered,

"I'm sorry, General. Which map were we on?" She walked over to pick up her stencil.

"What was that?" Leia whispered, eyes wide and longing.

Rey gave a quiet smile, "Balance."

 _ **PLEASE REVIEW BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE!**_

 _ **-D.**_


	36. Hard as Iron, Soft as Velvet

_**AAAND I'm back! Trying to make up for three months of silence! XD Here's some more Hux and Ahalai for y'all! :)**_

 _ **Also, just a side note. Course Title is basically the equivalent of a PhD FYI. So... Hux having 4 course titles? Yeah that's kind of crazy, especially for a kid who didn't go to school until he was seventeen years old, because he was participating in his crazy father's idea of the hunger games, and was basically just trying to survive childhood.**_

 _ **Just something to keep in mind. :)**_

 _ **-D.**_

He was off balance.

And yet perfectly poised,

when he returned.

Ahalai had cried herself to sleep after he'd left. She would estimate she might have even reached the second stage of her cycle; not quite to NREM stage 3 or 4, however, so she startled awake as soon as he entered the room again.

He reminded her of fire. She wanted to run from it. From him….he was going to burn her whole, eat her alive … grace curled fluidly through his movements only to flare up and jerk maniacally like he had when he was seizing. He moved like a flame. Unpredictable. Uncontrolled. Unforgiving.

His blazing gaze locked on her and she pressed herself as far back into the corner again as she could. His pale eyes blazed like white light and melted her own until tears slipped, hot down her cheeks again. She glanced down at her bruised wrists that were swollen from his iron grip and shuddered. She did not look up again. She had that primitive, instinctual fear that if she did, he would pounce.

She hated this. Angry tears mixed with the melted scared one's.

 _"Helplessness is the worst kind of hell."_

It took her several seconds to realize it was not her own thought. Her gaze snapped up and he was standing two feet from her. He was looking at her. Puzzling her. Trying to figure what she was thinking. He wrote the _Wensti method of Cultural Integration, Segregation and Degradation._ He knew what made people work better than she did. His Course Title was complete. She felt like she was gazing into a furnace. Like the skin around her face was tightening and shrivelling under the scrutiny.

"What?" She whispered. The heat had sapped her throat dry. There was no one to hear her scream anyways. No one who would come.

 _"Helplessness is the worst kind of hell."_ the fire-haired general repeated with a carefully blank and equally calculating stare. "Ilasri Autogren said that. Funny though, as an aristocrat of Coruscant, I don't think she ever experienced helplessness."

Ahlai didn't know whether to be comforted by his speaking calmly to her, or terrified out of her mind. So she just sat there and stared up at him, torn between the two.

The general stood two feet from her, studying her carefully before saying cooly. "You do know who Ilasri Autogren is don't you?" A flaming eyebrow arched reproachfully.

She nodded twice, catching her courage she began to stutter off a list off facts, because that's what she did when there was nothing else to do. "She was the greatest literature artist of the last century from Coruscant. She graduated from Tumlolett's Academy with two Course Titles in Literature and Poetry. She wrote ' _The Turner's Tale'_ , ' _The Birth of Agony_ ', and ' _The Existentialist_ '. She-"

He held up a pale hand, "That's enough." He demanded.

She had been rambling again, hadn't she? She always rambled when she was nervous.

"I'm not sure I would go as far as to name a writer as an artist… but that's a matter of opinion. The Captain says you have a Course Title. Is that true?"

It was like a slap in the face. She felt that rage at the injustice flare again and she grit her teeth, furious that tears still burned her eyes. She wanted to be stone cold and resolved and glare back into his face for slapping her with that. With that almost Title. With that life accomplishment that was executed neatly alongside her father. She still glared, but she couldn't block the tears.

"Is that true?" He repeated, looking down at her demandingly. She was shivering she was so angry, so terrified, so furious.

"No!" She snapped to her feet, quivering, quaking, trembling. "No! I was never awarded my Course titles!" She bared her teeth at him and realized a second too late that she was leaning in inches from his face. She felt her eyes widen and the shrunk back in fear. His expression, however, had not faltered. He still looked at her with one flaming eyebrow raised reproachfully and was that a small smirk twisting at the corner of his cruel mouth? Rage returned in full force, but this time she had the sense enough to keep it in check.

"Never, awarded." He repeated. "But you were working on it?" Finally a frown brushed his brow, "Did you say, titles?" He put emphasis on the plural nature of the word.

She swallowed hard, out of fear or fury-likely both- and nodded.

"In what?" He clasped his hands behind his back and studied her like a professor who'd just discovered a spark of intelligence in the student he least expected it from. "The Captain said you knew what to do with my seizure, so what Title is that? Medical? Anatomy?"

"A combination of the two." She muttered. She wasn't angry anymore, frustrated and frightened, but not angry.

Both brows went up now,

"Medical Anatomy." He repeated. "I wasn't even brave enough to go after that Title."

Something proud burst in the pit of her stomach. But it was quickly swallowed by the dark pit of shame that reminded her that nothing was going to make her superior to this man. Ever again. He was her Charge, and she was his slave. She swallowed thickly again and began to study the floor intently.

"What else?" He asked.

She glanced up and he was looking at her with that same surprised interest. Unexpected intrigue.

She licked her lips nervously. Why did he care? So he got an educated bed-slave. The level of knowledge in her head didn't make her any more valuable now. She wasn't even considered a person in most systems now.

"Psychology, Literature, and Mathematics." She croaked.

Her Charge's lips parted but made no sound. His breath stopped in his chest and his pale blue eyes widened dramatically. He was shocked speechless. She glared at him. Because she was a woman and a slave he simply assumed that she had no intelligence, didn't he?

"Four-" He blinked hard and sucked in a deep breath. "You were working on four at once?"

Now she was offended.

"Did you think you were the only one capable of it?" She snapped and then slapped a hand across her mouth in shock that she'd said it out loud. He was going to kill her. The General didn't seem to have heard her though, he was just studying her face intently as though that might hold the answers for her education.

"What's your name again?"

She hated that he asked that question every time he met her. Did he honestly forget every time?

"Ahalai." She frowned.

"No, what's your last name?" He pushed.

Tears rose unbidden again and she looked down at her bare feet. "I don't have a last name anymore." She whispered.

"Ahalai means sorrowing." He informed her.

She couldn't help but roll her eyes, "Yes, I know. I picked the name."

"You picked-?" He frowned and then leaned back on his heels appraising her again slowly. "Are you of the Renailom people?" He asked.

She gave him a startled nod. Not many people knew of her culture, much less by name.

"So you gave yourself this name when you're family was executed." He explained almost to himself and so blunt it came out harsh.

She flinched and looked up at the ceiling, cursing the tears vemonenty in her mind.

"What was your name before?" He asked.

Before. Before the world ended and her life along with it. Before she was beaten and stripped of her identity, her family, her right to even her own body. Before she was Ahlai. Sorrowing and solitary.

"Manisha daughter of Badar."

The General sucked in a breath. "Badar." He repeated slowly. "You're father was executed for high treason and reporting to the resistan-"

"Yes, I know why my father was executed! I was there!" She snarled trying to hold back the sobs that so desperately wanted to claw free.

He went quiet and studied her again. His head was being held slightly off kilter, cocked lightly to the left.

"Manisha means?" He completely ignored her outburst, to her surprise.

"Intellectual; Knowledgeable; Wise; Well Learned; Brilliant; Intelligent…" She could almost hear her father list off the meanings of her name in his gravelly baritone of a whisper as he kissed her goodnight.

Those days were long gone. That whisper long dead. But the memories were still harsh and vividly sweet.

"And you changed your identity to 'sorrowing'." The General said, almost in a soft way. Not quite…. but almost.

She couldn't help but gape at him now. How did he know of her people? How could he possibly understand that the changing of name's ceremony was a changing of identity. Of renaming not your body, but your soul? How could he possibly know?

He understood culture and the workings of the human mind. That's how. And he wouldn't hesitate to use it against her. He would use whatever he had on her to brainwash or kill her and she knew it. That's what he did for a living. She would not appreciate any kindness he showed her. She would not fall for his snares.

He stared back at her with those pale, glass eyes and she could tell he was studying her as much as she was studying him. She met his gaze with her own and this time… she didn't back down.

She stood to her full height- the same six feet as his- and lifted her chin. She may be sorrow. But she was brilliant sorrow. She may be pathos. But she was equally Logos and Ethos. She may be a slave. But she was his equal in weight of the human soul.

Pale blue irises, hard as iron, locked on warm brown one's, soft as velvet. A dark face of deep understanding, pain and empathy, met a bone white mask of indifference forged by fires of cruelty she figured she'd never know the extent of. What kind of life made a creature like this one?

He suddenly turned his back on her and disappeared into the bathroom. He was dressed in a harsh cut military uniform when he returned, and all stray wisps of red hair were forced and slicked back into place. He was emotionless as he looked at her again.

Pointing a cruel finger at her face he demanded,

"Stay here." And turned briskly on his heel.

The door clicked shut and the lock hissed into place.

She didn't know if her kennel with the other slave girls was better than this prison with the mad general or not.

Was it better to have a cruel, intelligent Charge? Or a dumb brute of one?

She wondered, as she wandered over to his collection of books again, what her father would have said.

 _Run._ He would have said. _Get out of there, Manisha. Use your intelligence. Escape_. But where would she escape to? The resistance didn't even try and save them. She was almost grateful he was dead and could not see what happened to her mother and sister and her. She didn't want him to see her like this. Nothing but a piece of pretty property, whose mind and intellect were nothing of worth. It didn't matter what he father had taught her her entire life. As soon as he died she was taught the true meaning of helplessness.

" _Helplessness is the worst kind of hell."_

 ** _Guys! They were talking to_** ** _each other_** ** _like... almost normal people! XD What do you think? Please review! :)_**

 ** _-D._**


	37. Becoming the Red Snapping Dragon

_**And here we go again!**_

 _ **Okay, y'all, heads up: in case you hadn't realized yet, Jae doesn't have her head screwed on exactly right. ;) I know, shocker, right? So she's going to use this term (s-He) in this chapter repetitivly and I just wanted to let you all know what that meant exactly. She's exploring Kylo Ren/Ben Solo's personality and memories through his force so she in a sense becomes him for a while. And because Jae is Jae and she does what she wants with grammer, she/he became sHe. :) make sense? Shoot me any questions you have! I'd love to hear from someone! Anyone? Maybe? I'm just a lonely author here... ;) Please review!**_

 _ **-D.**_

She had force. She owned force. She needed force. She was Force. _**Force**_.

Jae lay on the floor of her chambers, flat on her back, long slender limbs stretched outwards like the arms of a star. Occasionally she would twitch or gasp, but other than those minuscule exceptions, she didn't move from her spot on the floor. She was meditating. Saturating. Marinating. **_Force_**.

She had power. She owned power. She needed power. She was power. _**Power.**_

Energy twisted and rolled within her like waves of an ocean planet. It sang and screamed within her being, begging for release, for direction, for purpose. She sighed softly and contained it. Her sea. Her ocean. Her own. _**Power.**_

She had rage. She owned rage. She needed rage. She was rage. _**Rage**_.

Snarling and quivering, wrapping around each of her ribs and coiling tight until they groaned, then caved under the weight of it. She could feel the weight of her enemy atop her as he pinned her to the cell floor. She could feel the panic bubbling from her chest like blood. She ate it up, swallowed it all, and boiled it down into rage. He'd shamed her, enraged her, beaten her. She snarled. She quivered. She boiled. ** _Rage._**

Kylo Ren. Master of the Knights of Ren. Force like a red snapping dragon. She found Him. She submerged in Him. She drowned in His sea. She quivered. She boiled in the belly of the red snapping dragon. She studied Him. She knew Him. She owned Him. She felt Him. He was agony. **_Pain._**

 _ **She was Him. sHe was Ben Solo. The only one who could ever really defeat Kylo Ren.**_

sHe had pain. sHe owned pain. sHe needed pain. sHe was pain. _**Agony.**_

Did He think this agony was meant only for Him? Did he think Himself the only one capable of wielding this awful power? Did he think no one had ever held a red snapping dragon in their palm? She felt. Him. She explored his pain. Adopted his agony. sHe never knew father. Han Solo. sHe knew of father, but never knew father. sHe was never going to be enough and simultaneously was too much. sHe was a mistake. sHe wasn't supposed to have happened. Mother wouldn't say it aloud… but sometimes she regretted…. Regretted the accident that made this child. This child who knew of a father… instead of knowing one.

sHe knew his worth was little compared to the threat of the power in the body sHe had not asked for. sHe had first wanted to die at six years old. When sHe was fourteen, sHe had a friend. Talia. Too much dark side in her, Uncle said. Banished her. She was ambushed by savages. Slaughtered. Murdered. Raped. Because she had too much darkside. Uncle didn't care. But sHe did. sHe dreamed of Talia. sHe'd seen her death a million times over through force visions. Uncle didn't care, because Uncle didn't have to watch, helpless by the sidelines. Over and over, every night, a million times.

sHe had known sHe'd kill father since sHe was six. That's when the first dream came. The first time sHe had watched father's body, limp and dead, fall from a dark catwalk that flickered in red shadows. sHe'd woken screaming and mother had promised. Promised that such a thing would never happen. That sHe would never hurt that father sHe'd never really known.

But the dreams did not stop. They festered and multiplied. Until all sHe had in that dark skull was images of father, and all the ways he would die that day. sHe played out the scenarios hundreds of thousands of times. To get it right. To save that father sHe knew of. sHe could do something this time. sHe could save him. It wouldn't be like Talia. It couldn't be.

But try as sHe might, sHe could not save father. The first order always caught him and tortured him to death, slowly, agonizingly, until even the great Han Solo broke. Pleaded. Begged. Wept like a child. Lost his mind to insanity. Tried to die, over and over. And never got it right. Always somehow survived. Hated life and pined for death. sHe knew now what sHe had to do. But even after decades of knowing. Of trying to be prepared. sHe almost died with the father sHe had to kill to save. sHe hated fate, hated the hands sHe owned, hated the life this father had created. By accident. Killed by the mistake. The mistake he'd never had the time to get to know. If he'd tried...even once...he would have known that Ben had cried dry, sobbed raw, the night sHe had saved him by killing him. Han Solo might have known that sHe was only trying to reconcile a world only sHe knew was coming, by doing whatever sHe could to affect the outcome. But Han Solo didn't know. Because he was only ever a father that was known of. Never known. And Ben was only ever a mistake that was known of. Never known.

 _ **She was Him. sHe was Ben Solo. The only one who could ever really defeat Kylo Ren.**_

Never known. Never known.

Jae gasped and clawed her way to the surface. Giggling. Cackling. Weeping. Agony was a dangerous weapon to wield. But admirable even so. Not many would be willing to let themselves be swallowed by the red snapping dragon in order to simply understand it. But not many knwe the true worth of understanding the key to this man's incredible force, or his control of it. She would not underestimate him again though. She felt the red snapping dragon curl up behind her pounding heart and light her frozen limbs afire. _**Burn.**_

 _ **sHe would be his undoing. Because the only one who could ever defeat Kylo Ren… was Ben Solo. And now Ben Solo was hers. Solo.**_

 _ **Force.**_

 _ **Force.**_

 _ **Power.**_

 _ **Power**_.

 _ **Rage.**_

 _ **Rage.**_

 _ **Pain.**_

 _ **Agony.**_

 _ **Burn.**_

She had Ben. She owned Ben. She needed Ben. She was Ben.

 _ **Solo.**_


	38. Tattered Hearts Still Tear

**I'm Back! I'm alive! And writing! XD SO sorry for the long absence guys, TLJ came out and it was just so different from the direction I was taking I kind of had a death of inspiration. Don't get me wrong, I liked it! But it sort of killed my fanfiction ideas... Also, as much as I enjoyed laughing as Hux... they ruined him a bit for me. :/ I thought he had potential to be a really interesting character... now, not so much. :(**

 **BUT! What's fanfiction for, right? I mean, I didn't even ship Reylo until I was in about Chapter three writing this and Reylo wasn't cannon so I can do what I want! ;) I'm going to declare this an official AU fanfic now from Episode 7 and keep on keeping on with character development my way. (The hard, painful, angsty way).**

 **Word of wisdom, you might want to review or skim a bit... I was even surprised how much I'd forgotten going through it again, and I wrote it! XD Again, so sorry for the long break! I hope I didn't lose all of you!**

 **-D.**

Ky was jerked awake when a guard roughly cuffed him over the head. He gasped and lurched back, large hands flying up to try and protect his head. The guard came at him again, kicking him in the gut and cuffing him when he fell forward.

 _You couldn't have just cuffed me while I was sleeping?_ He wasn't sure if his physical eyes were rolling, but if they could they must be. He could almost hear Rey snort in his head,

 _"They're getting a bit desperate to make sure we stay in line, yeah?"_

As he was hauled to his feet though, he felt that sick reminder in his gut that this was different than that year he spent with Rey in captivity. First of all, it was only him that was being dragged down a cold hallway, alone, half-starved and probably half-mad by this point too. Rey wasn't there this time to give him those sleepy morning smiles or to invent new and creative ways to insult the guards without getting caught. Her impish smirk when she knew she'd won one over him, or the snarl that light her whole face into some powerful angelic expression of protectiveness and survival instinct. First of all he was alone…

Second… he was with the first order-which meant he was likely never going to see that fierce face again. No, not likely, definitely. He was blind.

He was never going to see Rey's face again.

He felt like he was suffocating. He groaned and bowed his head. She could be a cell away and he'd never know. She could be feet away from him screaming his name, and he wouldn't know. He was trapped within himself, a terrifying place to be.

He shut his eyes hard against the harsh reality and grit his teeth, continuing on in the direction that he was being shoved. He was carefully measuring and taking inventory of how force was slowly trickling back to him. He was out of whatever cell was keeping his force at bay.

As soon as his bare feet had left the smooth stone surface of the cell he'd been in and he'd stepped out onto the tiled floors of a ship, the fingers of his force had started to reach for him. He swallowed the initial gasps that wanted to push from his lungs as to not alert the guards of his returning power. No need to alert them until he had a reasonable escape plan. Which he did not. Not yet. Finding a way to get out of wherever he was being held was unsurprisingly difficult considering his senseless, starved and weakened state. He might be able to use a force blast strong enough to shake the guards off for a few moments, but then what?

Run face first into a wall? Off the edge of a balcony? Into a training room full of troopers? Just collapse of exhaustion after the minute of adrenaline wore off? No, that wouldn't do any good.

Instead he greedily hoarded every little bit of force that came back so that he could at least feel like he wasn't totally defenseless. It felt like they were going to keep walking forever and he quietly wondered if his shaking knees were going to buckle. He still hadn't been fed since before Attacker. Light-headed and dizzy he let the guards push him around and stored up force to help him stand.

After walking in the dark and cold forever, vaguely aware of souls passing his through his force sense and completely unaware of anything else, he was shoved into water. Gasping and flailing he fought at hands from every direction as they tore Companion's shawl from his hips and tore at his skin, scraping at dirt and grime.

He snarled and struggled against them. There were so many. Two hands per person meant that there were seven? Ten? Fifteen? Hands stripping him, scrubbing him, shoving him, beating him when he resisted. And resisting was something he never stopped.

 _"Stubborn much, beast bait?"_ He could almost hear Rey snicker in his head. Force, he supposed you don't realize how much a part of you someone else has become, unless you're separated from them for months and still hear their voice in your head.

He was never going to hear her voice again.

His tattered heart ripped yet again.

He was thrown out of the water and shoved out alone onto slick wet tile. Hair bristled up his spine and he held perfectly still, unable to know if he was alone, or surrounded, in silence or swimming in sound he was unable to hear. Suddenly hot air pummeled in from either side of him and he was thrown to the ground, unprepared.

He was in a shower dryer. The pounding heart in his chest wouldn't let him calm down even when he realized it was not a threat and clothes were shoved into his now dry arms.

He felt like every nerve in his body was straining to compensate for his lack of senses. Every muscle ached along his frame in anxious anticipation. Why? Where? Who? What? He had no way of knowing anything.

' _Ky_ ,' Rey's voice chided in his head, ' _what do you know? You know something.'_

He took a deep breath. He knew he was cold. And Hungry. The cold he could fix. The guards had given him clothing. He knew they wanted him dressed, which meant they were probably taking him somewhere. He knew he was cold, that he was hungry, that he was supposed to get dressed and that they were going somewhere. He knew he had force. He was not helpless.

Even if he felt completely so.

He took another deep breath and crouched down to get dressed, feeling safer closer to the ground so he could feel more of where he was at. He felt more in control somehow. He had a little force and he risked using just a bit of it to send out a pulse and explore his surroundings just a little.

Seven guards. Five men, two women. _'You should feel flattered.'_ Rey snarked in his head. ' _They still think you're a threat, isn't that sweet?'_ A small smirk touched the corner of his mouth before he carefully wiped it away and finished dressing. How on earth would he have survived the past eight years without her humor? Force knew he didn't have any of his own.

As soon as his shirt was pulled over his shoulders, the freedom from the guards ended. Metal gloved hands smashed into him and dragged him forward. Ky didn't know to where, but if they thought that they needed to forcibly drag him there, it was not somewhere he wanted to go.

There were just two of them holding him so he dug his feet into the ground and twisted as hard as he could. His strength was lagging, but his height made it easier, their grips slipped and for maybe half second he was free. But then all seven of them lunged and struggle as he might, seven was too many. His strength evaporated after the initial burst of adrenaline and now his body was reminding him that he hadn't eaten in days at best. Weeks at worst.

Still he bared his teeth and threw every little bit he had into making it as difficult as he could for them to drag him from point A to point B. Several blows to the head landed him dizzily at the soldiers feet and a swift kick in the stomach stunned him enough that they just grabbed an arm or leg and carried him like a kill between them. He was too tired to resist anymore.

He felt like beast bait again.

Great.

The world swayed, a sensation he could only recognize as his equilibrium spun around in the dark, silent cavity he now dwelled in. When it finally stopped the guards dropped him unceremoniously upon a smooth as glass surface that sent pain racing through his bruises and breaks from the numerous beatings. He stayed on the ground for a while trying to find his bearings. When nothing happened for a while he slowly crept to his feet, self-consciously reaching around him for clues, until a voice- so familiar it made his insides freeze and shatter- spoke through force and into his silent world of black and cold,

"Kylo Ren. Welcome to the second dual for the title Master of the Knights of Ren."

He recognized the slick, oily force with tidal waves of power crashing within it as Snoke's, a split second before he was hit with the most powerful hurricane of dark force he'd ever experienced.

He dropped to his knees screaming.

 **Please Comment! I need to hear thoughts and feelings to keep me going!**

 **-D.**


	39. Vintner of Agony

Master of none. None.

Leader of none. Nothing.

Son of none. Murderer.

Father to none. Dead.

Mate to none. Broken.

Worthy of none. Worthless.

Healing of none. Pain.

Peace of none. Passion.

Love of none. Hatred.

Light of none. Darkness.

Jae was drunk on the power of the former master's power. Drunk on the rage and the pain and the fear. Drunk on the power he so unknowingly gave her. None could resist her, because none could resist themselves. None could defeat her because none would defeat themselves. None could survive her because her power was theirs, because their agony was her wine, fermented in so many years of repression and survival. But she was reminder. She was inflicter. The consumer of their sorrows, the drinker of their shame. She was the winemaker, the vinter of agony.

And she was drunk on every last drop.


	40. How Powerful?

Rey was braving eating in the mess hall today. She'd made contact with Sai last night, found he was safe and on his way to Luke and had slept more soundly than she had in the month since the attack. Poe had been inviting her to join him, but it wasn't until Rey made contact with her son, and Ophi invited her as well, that she agreed.

It went eerily quiet when she entered the mess hall and she almost just turned around right there and stormed out. She could see the distrust and fear in some eyes, outright anger and judgement in others. For a moment she was glad she'd worn a large, baggy shirt to hide her now barely showing pregnancy, but as soon as the thought came it dissolved in rage.

She was not ashamed to be carrying this child. She was never ashamed to carry Sai. She was never ashamed of loving her husband. She was not ashamed now.

And she would not apologize to anyone.

Ophi looped an arm around her shoulder and led her over to a table of medics, whispering,

"You know, people might actually give you a chance if you didn't glare death at them for the act of inhaling oxygen."

Rey shot Ophi a death glare of her very own and the zabrak laughed with glinting teeth and offered Rey a seat at the table first.

"Rut, Olly, Uitenough, Frei, Qwen and Tilly." She rattled off the names of the other medics at the table who eat gave her their own version of a smile or a nod. Six pairs of eyes were on her belly and Ohpi translated,

"So the _real_ reason we wanted you to sit with us was cause we wanted to hear about a force pregnancy first hand, cause that's like… totally awesome! How early does the fetus develop force? Can you like, communicate with the fetus? Does it feel different? Oh, also we just like you and wanted to sit with you and food is good." She shoveled a fork full into her mouth as if to emphasize and then said through a full mouth, " _Sooooo_ good. So, what's a force baby like?"

Rey rolled her eyes, accustomed to Ophi's lack of social grace at this point, and took a bite of her own food.

"I don't know," She chuckled, "I've only ever carried force users. What's a normal pregnancy like? Then I can tell you what's different."

"Well," The blue haired human Olly pointed a chin at the shy Cathar female across the table from him, "Qwen here has studied force in a CT qualifier program, trying to obtain access to a route to earn a Course Title, and she claims that force can be detected in a fetus as early as the first month. We don't have the right tech on base, but can you sense it?"

Rey nodded through a mouth full of food and swallowed with another smile. "Yes, I can feel her, as soon as I was out of recovery I started exploring my force for her."

Ohpi blinked and said, "Her? You can tell sex already?"

Rey nodded again with a frown, "How long do you have to wait for a normal pregnancy?"

"Uh, at least 18 weeks, up to 22." Ophi declared, the medics around her nodding. "We don't have the resources to do a genetic test like Amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling here on base, and they're pretty risky as is… wait, can you tell genetics with force?"

"Yeah," Rey confirmed taking another bite, noting how much better food was when it was eaten in company. "Her force is threaded through mine… kind of… uh, learning from mine and so it takes a while to identify her, but we could feel Sai as soon as his heart started beating."

Ophi's eyes almost popped from her horned head, " _We_!? As in the father can feel the pregnancy happening too?!"

Rey snorted at the zabrak's unguarded shock. "Yes, we're both highly sensitive force users and we were force bonded so… it would have been kind of hard to miss."

"How did you miss it this time?" Ophi asked.

Rey sighed and rubbed a hand down her face. "Her power is very similar to Ky's and-" She stopped, studying the faces around her for a reaction, but they stayed intently focused, waiting for the next medical revelation. Something warm bloomed in her heart. Something maybe like hope. "My husband was having frequent force visions which are usually really intense and exhausting and… I guess I was just so focused on Ky and keeping him grounded in the present that I didn't even think to be aware of another force. Especially when she's so similar-"

Rey abruptly stopped talking, uneasiness coming over her in a sudden wave of ice. She shouldn't have said that. It was true, her baby's force was very similar to Ky's; dark, passionate, protective even at only a few weeks old, and so very aware of everything around her. Powerful. But to equate the child in her womb to these people's most feared enemy was the worst thing she could have done. It would instill nothing but fear of the helpless infant in her womb and mark her all the more separate after birth.

She felt herself coiling defensively as a few of the medics expressions shifted slightly. But then Ophi was barging ing with another question and carrying the conversation right along through the impasse.

"Okay, so you both can feel the baby crazy early. How early does communication start?"

"As soon as we know," Rey shrugged, grateful for Ophi's ignoring of her slip up. "Sai was really social. He was always wrapping up in Ky or me."

Olly frowned, "Wrapping up?"

Rey thought for a moment how to describe it and then said, "Well communication isn't verbal or language based yet… it's uh, emotional. It's with force...it's-" Rey grasped at the air for the words. "Physical… sort of. We could kind of feel where he was and wrap up around him, or he could reach for us…?" She glanced around at the medics at the table who were trying to grasp the concept of a sense they'd never felt.

"How powerful is your son exaclty?" Tilly asked, white eyes bright as starlight and narrowed as she asked the trapping question. "It's never happened before that the two most powerful force users in the same generation procreate." There was a collective intake of breath around the table at the biting accusation in the question. "Especially from two dark side users."

Rey opened her mouth to snarl in return when a sudden wave of pain hit her like a freighter and she collapsed into Ophi's arms screaming.

 _ **PLEASE COMMENT! :)**_


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